


the long way to the end of the universe (and back again)

by lentezon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (minor) wing!kink, Alien!Castiel, Alternate Universe – Sci Fi, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Graphic Torture, Slow Build, allusions to past non-con, creature!Castiel, domestic!Destiel, mechanic!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 12:36:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 82,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12794712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lentezon/pseuds/lentezon
Summary: When the ship Dean Winchester works on crashes on a desolate planet, he’s not expecting to survive for long. What he’s expecting even less is to find that the planet isn’t as void of life as he’s been made to believe, and that there are reasons behind his crash beyond his imagination.A story about (literally) finding life, finding love, and the race to save an Earth on the verge of dying.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe it's finally here--the longest story I've ever written. It's taken me so long (so little time, so many writer's blocks) that it feels utterly strange to let it out into the world now, but I'm happy that the time has come and very excited to share this with you.
> 
> Art for this fic by the amazing ishallnameyoujoe - go check her out on [Tumblr](http://whatdoesntfit.tumblr.com)!

* * *

  **An unexpected planet**

* * *

 

**One.**

   “Winchester. I need you to check Sector C, lowest level. Something seems to be wrong there, but I can’t figure out what it is from the panel. Report back immediately.”

   “Yes, sir.”

   Captain Victor Henriksen raised an eyebrow as if to say something else, but stayed quiet. Winchester was never supposed to be part of his crew, but truth be told, he was glad to have him.

   His unimpressed look turned into a small smile, just for a second, as Dean Winchester turned and left the control room with barely a look out the viewscreen. Out there, already in their line of sight, lay Atala, the recently discovered main planet of their neighbouring galaxy. It was called the main planet solely because its atmosphere was similar to that of Earth, leading researchers to believe it was full of the precious resources humanity had finally almost drained their own planet of. Plus, it was supposed to be uninhabited, as several unmanned robot flights had shown them.

   With space technology finally having come to this standard, it was only a matter of time before someone had to go there to check it out in person. For all humanity’s past talk about living on Mars if it had to come to it, Mars was still painfully bare, and there wasn’t anything they could spare to grow a proper ecosystem now.

   Humans, Dean thought, didn’t really deserve doing that if they couldn’t even handle a planet that was perfectly fine for them naturally.

   Atala looked gorgeous from a distance, blue and green and purple, patterns that were almost indescribable. There wasn’t anything like them on Earth, nothing that looked so colourful or naturally beautiful. Dean hated them.

   Henriksen claimed they should see being sent into this strange solar system as an honour. Dean said it was a punishment, although he wasn’t sure what Henriksen or Fitzgerald had done to deserve it. For all he knew, they actually volunteered. There were always people crazy enough to want to visit unknown planets, or to mean something to the world, or just to leave their dying home planet behind. Nerds like his brother Sam who’d kill for the opportunity to do research directly at the source.

   But nerds like his brother Sam were too valuable to be sent there first, in case the planet didn’t turn out to be all that survivable at all.

   Now, Dean was a damn good mechanic, but he was pretty sure he only got sent along because there was no place for him back on Earth. He was good, but there were plenty of others, too. He and Jo, the small blonde who’d become his best buddy on this ship, were what society called Rogues. It meant they’d committed a crime that wasn’t severe enough to get them a death penalty, such as owning weapons (Jo, although she said she’d never use them) or stealing valuable resources (Dean, because he’d had to raise a kid brother almost entirely by himself and although he’d been taking up small jobs since their father disappeared, it wasn’t always enough, alright?).

   Food was qualified as ‘valuable resources’ now.

   Truth was, it didn’t matter all that much to Dean that he was sent somewhere that was questionable in terms of survival chances. It wasn’t better or worse than sitting around in a bare cell all day unless he was working on something. And at least Sam had survived childhood; he got a job in researching a year ago that would earn him enough credits to survive on his own, and at least it wasn’t him who’d be there if they found out they couldn’t survive on Atala and died.

   You don’t send a ship off on a long trip with only five crew members if you expect them to live. Dean hadn’t said that to anyone, though, even if he was sure at least some of them had to know. None of them were on this ship because they were stupid. A bit too optimistic maybe, at least in their captain’s case, but come on. A mechanic, a comp tech, a captain, a nurse and administrator, and a jack-of-all-trades who knew her way around natural resources as well as a space ship? He wasn’t convinced.

   He realized he’d arrived at Sector C. The ship wasn’t huge, just big enough for five people to comfortable stay in for months at a time, so it didn’t take too long to get from one sector to another. They only had three to begin with—Sector A, Tech, where the main controls were located, navigation was done, and all other kinds of important things were regulated (such as ship temperature); Sector B, where they slept and stored important things such as food in stasis so after all these weeks it was still edible, if not tasty; and Sector C, Mechanical. Dean’s space. The sector that he knew better than anything.

   He stopped dead in his tracks and listened intently.

   “Henriksen.” He tapped the blue button on the communicator on his wrist and waited for a reply. “Cap. You receiving me?”

   “Winchester. What’ve you got?”

   “You’re right—there’s something off. I’m gonna see if I can find out where the problem lies. Check in when I’ve found it.”

   “Copy that,” Henriksen agreed, and Dean let the communication line drop.

   Since Sector C was their mechanical sector, this was a task specifically for Dean. Jo knew her way around and could help him out when he needed an extra pair of hands, but it was Dean who personally helped build this ship. He may have been in prison, but food and other resources were far too valuable to spend on someone who gave nothing to society. Prisoners were all put to work in exchange for meals. At first glance, it wasn’t much different from life outside of prison, really, except lonelier. Not seeing the brother he practically raised every day had taken a toll on Dean.

   Either way, Dean had been lucky he was the best mechanic they had. Most of them got the dirty jobs, the dangerous ones that no one in their right mind wanted to take up unless they were forced to. The ones the regular mechanics would never do, not if they could put them on someone else. Dean had managed to get through months of avoiding those jobs before his luck ran out.

   He’d been lucky he was _actually_ good at what he did, not someone who just happened to know a few things. How someone as clueless about motors as Nick had ever gotten the job even of just overseeing the process was a mystery to Dean.

   Then again, Nick was ruthless as a supervisor—they probably chose him to work with prisoners for that.

   Either way, Dean knew his shit. He knew exactly what everything in here was supposed to sound and look like. Mechanical wasn’t a quiet sector; There were gentle sounds of machines doing their jobs: the humming of the engines in the back, the lights that showed the regulation of their artificial gravity systems while they were in zero G, the whirring of the Oxygen Regulation System. It was almost soothing, usually. These were the kinds of sounds Dean had surrounded himself with all his life, and they meant everything was working the way it should.

   Space was full of sounds that both reminded you how fragile life was, and simultaneously, that all these things were keeping you alive. There was a hum like that throughout the whole ship, but it was louder in the crowded space down here. A good kind of hum, usually.

   Except something wasn’t sounding _right_.

   Dean made his way through the room slowly, trying to figure out by listening intently just where the unnatural sound came from. It was a soft clicking, probably not even noticeable to the untrained ear.

   He was pretty sure it was the ORS.

   “Crap,” he muttered under his breath. He should tell Henriksen something was wrong with the ORS immediately, but he also wanted to figure out what the direct source of the clicking was. It might be something easy to fix, and he didn’t want people to worry unnecessarily. They were all pretty unflappable, used to dealing with stressful situations, but a panic was the last thing they needed on their hands and Dean didn’t want to risk it.

   There was nothing to give away anything was wrong at all at first glance. It took some digging to realize that a panel at the back had come loose.

   That was weird. Because this wasn’t the kind of primitive engineering that generations before them used to work with. Their screws and bolts clicked in place with teeth that made them stay stuck where they were. Even with the right tools, you couldn’t easily get them un-stuck. It was near impossible for a screw to loosen for no good reason. These ships were made to last—with the journeys they were meant for, they had to be.

   “Henriksen. Send Jo down. I might need a hand.”

   “You found something? Is it fixable?”

   “I hope so,” Dean answered grimly. He could set the panel in a minute, but he wanted to take it out and check behind it first. It was a hunch, but more often than not, Dean’s hunches were right.

   He hoped this one was not.

   “You called?” a female voice rang out through the space not much later. “Thank God. I was bored to death.”

   “You’re always bored,” Dean reminded her, looking around at the skinny blonde.

   She just shrugged. “I dunno, Dean, I always thought ‘intergalactic travel’ sounded a bit more adventurous than being stuck on a ship doing nothing for days, on the way to our anticlimactic deaths.” Jo was not a firm believer in the survivability of other planets. Then again, Earth wouldn’t be survivable much longer, either, so there wasn’t much of a choice. “So what’ve you got?”

   “Loose panel,” Dean grunted.

   Jo, to her credit, understood immediately. “You wanna check behind it.”

   “There’s no such thing as an accidentally loose bolt.”

   She was quiet for a minute while Dean picked out his tools before she said, quietly, “You think someone’s been tinkering with it?”

   “I dunno.” He aimed his flashlight at the panel. There was only one corner loose, the other bolts seemed stuck the way they were supposed to. Either the fourth one was a faulty one, which was rare, or someone had failed to put it back right. “We gotta check.”

   “Yeah, I guess,” Jo agreed. “So what do you need me to do?”

   “Man the flashlight,” he told her. “It depends on if I find anything. It could be nothing.”

   It wasn’t nothing. Of course it wasn’t. Dean didn’t think either of them expected it to be, for some reason.

   It was a chip, small enough that Dean could cover it with the tip of his finger.

   “Is that—“

   “Yeah.” Dean rubbed a hand over his face. “Can you take care of it?” He could’ve asked for Ash, but Ash was manning the computers in A and he didn’t want to disturb him in case something unexpected happened. As Jo’s life-long friend, however, the man had taught her plenty.

   “Of course.” Jo was a master with details. She had a small computer on her arm that didn’t hold her communication band, which she could insert chips into. It was a kind of computer that enabled her to look at its details and fix anything about them that way. It was more tech than mechanical. Dean had one too, but he never used it. Both Jo and Ash had more patience for that kinda stuff than he did, anyway. He went to call Henriksen while she worked.

   “You’re telling me you found a heat chip on my ship,” Victor Henriksen deadpanned after Dean had explained the situation over his communicator. “You got Jo working on it?”

   “Obviously.”

   “Then I trust it’ll be handled.”

   “It doesn’t make sense, though,” Jo said once Henriksen had closed the communication line. “It was set not too long after this moment, so I guess we’re lucky we found it, but…”

   “But why now,” Dean agreed, thinking of the planet ahead that he’d refused to look at earlier.

   “Yeah. It’s only a few more hours till we land on Atala. There’s no guarantee we couldn’t have held out without the ORS until landing. Why would anyone risk the chance of being caught sabotaging a ship and leave such a big chance it doesn’t even work?”

   They reached the same conclusion at the same time. “There’s something else,” Jo said.

   Dean opened his mouth to say something—something along the lines of, _We should hurry, if the other one wasn’t far from frying the ORS._

He never even got the first word out.

   The impact of the blast forced him backward, knocking the wind out of him. He landed against something sharp and there was a stab of pain in his ribs, but the hammering of his heart in his chest was far more prominent than anything else he might be feeling. He could hear components falling down and a shout of pain.

   “Jo!”

   He heard someone coughing to his right that could only be her. There was little dust from the explosion, but his view of Jo was obscured by something he couldn’t place. Dean stumbled a little as he made his way to her. “Jo?”

   “Winchester. What happened down there?” Henriksen. Of course.

   “There was another,” Dean said in a voice croaking with what he couldn’t call anything but shock while he went around to check up on Jo. “I’m gonna assess the damage.”

   Jo smiled weakly at those words and Dean knew it was bad. Shit, he could _see_ it was bad now that he was closer. It was the panel that had been hiding the heat chip, the one he hadn’t put back in place yet.

   He vaguely heard Henriksen say something about an engine, but the only thing he could pay attention to was the panel, and how it was wedged into Jo’s abdomen. There was some blood welling up around the edges, but little. There would be no way to safely remove it without the blood starting to flow scarily fast.

   He’d seen plenty of blood before, but never had it made him nauseous the way this did. The tang of the red liquid was more prominent than any of the regular metallic smells in this sector, and it seemed so _bright_ among all the grey, like it was fucking taunting them. Just those few tiny fucking drops.

   “You know, when I was being sceptical about surviving this trip, I was talking about after we arrived on Atala,” Jo said with another weak smile.

   “Shut up,” Dean told her. “You’re not about to die.”

   “If you say so, Dean.”

   They didn’t have any qualified healing equipment on board. Not for this. Dean could deal with cuts and broken bones and Nancy was a trained nurse who could deal with most things that didn’t require special equipment, but he doubted either of them could handle anything like this. This wasn’t a limb the panel had forced its way into, it was right beside her intestines. Maybe even right through them. Dean tried not to shudder at the thought.

   “You should grab your mask,” she said. “There might be an air leak.”

   They were required to have the masks on them at all times, for emergency cases. It would give them clean air for long enough to survive several hours, maybe even a day depending on the air outside. Long enough to make it to Atala from here, in any case—at least, if they were still on course after the explosion.

   He put on his mask and got Jo’s out of her belt as well, trying not to move her too much. Judging by the gasps she let out, he was failing.

   “You’re bleeding,” Jo told him, lifting a hand to the side of his head—the side he fell on—and touching what must be a cut, because her fingers came back red. Dean just shot her a look, and she raised an eyebrow. “What? I’m just saying. I’m pretty sure you can fix that cut.” _You can’t fix me._

   The ship jerked sideways violently. Jo let out a sharp cry of pain. Dean was suddenly aware again of Henriksen shouting through the communication lines. “Winchester! Harvelle! I need all hands on deck!”

   “I think I’ll pass on this one, Cap,” Jo croaked, gesturing for Dean to leave.

   It was that simple gesture that made everything stop around them, quiet down the way it never should. “Kid,” he said quietly, “I’m not gonna leave you here.”

   “Yeah, you are. You heard Henriksen. They need everyone.”

   Dean laughed humourlessly. “If Ash can’t deal with something in the control room, then neither can anyone else.”

   “Then go assess the real damage. You _know_ four people is hardly enough already.”

   He rolled his eyes, because _she_ was real damage, but he made his way to the back anyway. She was right—Nancy would be awake and up by now, but four people was still hardly enough to run a ship during an emergency. As much as Dean didn’t want to admit it, he had no idea how to save Jo, but he still had a chance of saving the ship and everybody else on it.

   He remembered catching Henriksen say the word ‘engine’ and his heart sank. The ship was starting to tilt to the left now, or maybe it had all along—he couldn’t be sure. If the right engine was down, there was nothing Dean could do. Not when it was caused by an explosion like that.

   If the chip in the ORS had fried the machine, they could all have been dead by now, with the additional second explosion. As it was, the thing still seemed to be working, because there were still voices over the communication line and they weren’t distorted by masks. But there was almost definitely an air leak in this sector. It wasn’t big, but if Jo hadn’t suggested they wear their masks, they would have been struggling for breath by now. Dead in a few more minutes.

   That meant he couldn’t leave mechanical. There was no airlock between the sectors. They could hold out there for a while, with the masks, since by the look of it the leak wasn’t big. By the force of the explosion, he’d have thought there’d be a hole as big in diameter as Dean himself in the outer walls of the ship, but the walls were strong. It was mostly backlash that had thrown them back. Still, the hole was big enough that toxic air was coming in, and he couldn’t risk it escaping to other sectors. That would be putting lives on the line.

   He realized with a sudden clarity that they were too far away from Earth for Ground Control to receive all their data. There was only so much that they could send from this distance. At most they’d hear speculation without proof. That would at least explain why the chips were set to go off so late. And without their right rear engine, they may very well not make it to Atala at all, not even from this short distance.

   Dean wanted to punch something. What kind of moron would sabotage a ship that was set out to find a way for humanity to survive, anyway? Who would benefit from that?

   There was no time to think that over. He could feel the ship drop for a few seconds before Henriksen, Nancy and Ash got it stabilized again.

   He hoped Sam would know what happened to his brother. He probably would, since the kid worked at the station and Henriksen must have been filling them in, but it was the only thing Dean could think of. He hadn’t forgotten John Winchester’s last trip. He never would. Because no one knew what happened to that ship.

   He fell over when the ship tilted further, sharply, and there was the sensation of falling, falling. Weightlessness, as though the ship was dropping fast enough that he’d be stuck against the ceiling instead of down on the floor. It didn’t happen, but he didn’t manage to get up either. Staying low for lack of another choice, he crawled back to Jo instead, who was panting in pain.

   “Hey,” he told her, looking at her fluttering eyelids, “you stay awake, you hear?”

   “Shut up, Dean.”

   “Jo, man, come on.”

   But it was no use. She’d closed her eyes, breathing heavily, and Dean could feel the fight drown out of himself as well. There was still blood coming out of the gash in his head—he could feel it run down the side of his face—and now that he had somewhat relaxed his muscles he felt the pain in his ribs that much worse.

   The ship was shaking heavily. Dean took another deep breath and tried to get up again. He couldn’t lie there waiting for the air to run out or the ship to crash. If he was going down, he’d go down fighting.

   At least, that was the idea.

   He hadn’t made it three meters before he was thrown over again, and it was almost a physical blow. The huge force of the impact suggested that this time, it was the ship that had run into something. And it didn’t stop with one crash, either. Dean was thrown to the side of the room—he could hear Jo’s scream that set his teeth on edge and tried not to imagine the amount of pain she must be in.

   He didn’t get the time to do so, anyway. Whatever the ship had crashed into, it wasn’t giving way, so it was the ship that took the damage. The ship, and them.

   Dean passed out when he hit his head again.

*

   When he woke up, everything was dark and everything hurt, and it took a while before Dean remembered not only that something awful had happened, but _what_. He was dizzy and his head felt like his brain was gonna burst out of it any second, and through that and the debris around him it took a while to realize where he was.

   Sector C.

   Except there wasn’t much left of sector C. Dean sat up and groaned, every one of his muscles hurting, and took a better look.

   It was a strange feeling seeing the sector like this, the one Dean personally had the responsibility over when they were building the ship. Nothing was in its rightful place, and it all looked grey and helpless in the dark.

   He tapped his communicator, but it was broken. Of course it was. Everything else seemed to be.

   Then he remembered Jo being with him when it happened, and the shock that rushed through him got him to jump up so fast he didn’t even remember making the movements. He also went down again nearly just as fast. Sometime during that crash, something happened to his right knee.

   Fucking peachy.

   He made his way to where he thought Jo should be anyway, albeit a little slower than planned through the pain. He tried calling out her name, but whatever came out was not his voice. It took a damn lot not to cough up his lungs.

   It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. He didn’t even have to get close to his friend to know she hadn’t made it.

   He didn’t linger. He decided to go look for the others first. Maybe they were in need of help right now; maybe they were even looking for them.

   The door to sector B didn’t open. Dean guessed he shouldn’t be surprised; if electricity was down here, it’d be down everywhere after that impact. He struggled his way to the back of the sector instead, his right leg dragging behind him. He could deal with that later. He had to find out what happened, first.

   As he expected, what was an air leak before the crash was now a hole big enough for Dean to crawl out of. He should count himself lucky the mask stayed on while he was being thrown about, ‘cause if the air outside was toxic, he wouldn’t have made it otherwise.

   Right. Lucky.

   He didn’t know what he was about to find outside. All he knew was that it couldn’t possibly be Atala, ‘cause they hadn’t been close enough yet. It would’ve been a few more hours. Nearly there, but not close enough. This place could be anything. The air could be toxic enough that he’d be dead in another hour.

   Well. Might as well see something of this galaxy before he died.

   Or he would, if there was anything to see.

   As far as Dean could see, the surface of whatever planet this was consisted of rocks and dry earth. He could feel his spirits sink. Forget about the composition of the air here; if this was what the entire planet looked like, there was no food or water. There might be some aboard, but he couldn’t tell how long that could keep here even if it hadn’t been pulverized in the crash.

   He made his way around the ship, slowly, hugging the sides of the huge contraption to keep upright on his bad leg. He was glad the air wasn’t so hot or cold that he couldn’t stand it, nor so toxic it burned straight through his skin. They had protective suits, but those were stored in sector B, so even if he’d thought of it sooner he wouldn’t have been able to access them. Anyway, if the air really was that toxic, the radiation coming through the hole in the ship would’ve killed him before he’d so much as had the chance to wake up.

   It took a ridiculous amount of time and physical exertion to reach the front of the ship, and when he did, he saw instantly that it had all been for nothing. Sector A had taken the brunt of the crash.

   Most of it no longer even existed.

   Where C had been shaken up badly, that was pretty much all it was compared to Sector A. A was the front part of the ship, and it was the part that had made direct contact with the surface of the planet. Its lower levels looked like they’d crumpled in on themselves, and the upper level had been smashed apart by the impact. There was glass and parts of panels everywhere, and not just closely around the ship. Dean could see it glittering in the light of this galaxy’s strange, bluish sun in the distance.

   There was no way Victor, Nancy and Ash had survived, crushed inside that sector. A was too damaged. Dean would get them out of there if he could, but he knew there was no hope for it. He wasn’t one to give up without at least trying, but he also knew he had to pick his battles out here. He was on his own. He couldn’t waste that amount of energy.

   On his own.

   The thought didn’t really sink in yet, not even with the sight of A right in front of him. Maybe one of them had been in B. That part was damaged, sure, but not so bad there was no hope for anyone there to have survived. He really wanted to scream, to yell out all their names, to bang the side of B just in hopes someone would hear him and bang on the other side of the walls. Any sign that he wasn’t on his own.

   He wanted to, but it would be more energy wasted in vain.

   He couldn’t do anything here, so he started making his way back to sector C. He would see what usable stuff he could scavenge there. Take shelter. Maybe he’d even bury Jo. It was the least she deserved.

   Dean was the kind of person who needed to keep busy in dreadful situations. He was no good sitting around with his thoughts. Prison taught him that much.

   He cursed loudly and tried to focus on the aches of his body as he made the return trip, slamming his fist on the side of the ship and wishing for a similar sound to answer him. It didn’t help, and no response came.

   When he got back around, he didn’t allow himself time to rest. Everything hurt, but there were things he had to do. He should find a way to get into B, but he had no clue where to start. His best option was to get back into C, try to wedge open the door to B from there somehow. The outside walls of these ships were impenetrable shells. He had no hope trying that.

   In C, the first thing he did was lock his eyes on the closed door on the other side of the Sector and keep them there. He didn’t want to properly assess the damage. He didn’t want to look at all his hard work from the last months, hell, _years_ , all torn to shreds. He didn’t want to see Jo’s blood smeared on the floor, spattered on the sides of machines as she was thrown around during the crash. (From the corners of his eyes, he saw all these things anyway.)

   Along the way, even without taking his eyes off the door, he managed to pick up a pipe with a flattened end that must have fallen from the puzzle of pipelines in the ceiling. He could use it as a wedge, maybe. Without the electricity, the doors couldn’t be as tightly locked as usual, their second security system gone. It was just a very well-locked door now.

   It was almost surreal how easily he went through these motions. His leg dragged, but he hardly felt the pain; the door was locked tight, but not tight enough for Dean to be unable to open it, in the end. He was in a state of mind not unlike a trance, hardly noticing anything except the most urgent things.

   Maybe things didn’t go as easily, but his mind just didn’t register all the sweat and pain. It didn’t matter. There was a buzz in his ears and fog in his vision that had nothing to do with tears, and nothing fucking mattered.

   All that mattered was that B didn’t give him what he was looking for.

   A dull kind of hurt seared through him as he took in the state of the sector. This ship was never home—Dean had never really had a home to begin with—but they had lived here for so long and worked on it for even longer, it was still painful to see everything strewn about like some very angry guy had gone through all the stuff with a club. But no one had, because no one was there. All there was, was the smell of emptiness, of someplace that should have been abandoned long ago, and a few bags of space food that Dean almost didn’t pick up but realized at the last minute he might need.

   All B gave him in the end was another few days to live on shitty food and stale water, and a major headache.

   Back outside, he took Jo’s belt with supplies—some tools, some more lasting food, and her water bottle. Then he took off both her communicator and her computer, feeling like he was violating her in a way. Her body looked bare without these things, even if she was still wearing the customary green space suit.

   But Jo was gone. She was gone along with everyone else, leaving him stranded alone after months of her company at the ship. She no longer had any use for her supplies. All because some fucker back on Earth didn’t want them to—what? To find that Atala was survivable? That it had the resources they were looking for? Something had to be there, or the obvious solution would’ve been to just let them land on the planet and die.

   It was like he couldn’t shut his brain off, not even when he made himself busy digging a grave in what seemed like a softer part of earth to bury Jo. He couldn’t freaking shut it off, and he wanted to wreck something.

   He tried to channel his aggression into the ground instead.

   It was while he was busy digging when he noticed it for the first time. A prickling feeling on the back of his neck. The feeling that someone was watching him.

   He stopped for a moment, leaning on his improvised shovel as he looked around. No one was there. He should be able to see them if they were, unless they were using the wreckage of the ship as cover, which wasn’t entirely unlikely. Dean turned so he was facing it and resolved not to turn his back on it again.

   Normally, he’d check it out, but after all that had happened he didn’t have the energy. He was sweating with the effort of digging into the unresisting ground. He could barely keep upright on his bad knee as it was. His breathing was heavy, and he wasn’t sure if that was from exertion or if it was the filter of his mask finally starting to fail him. He wasn’t sure if he cared. All he knew was he wanted to finish this task.

   The prickling feeling didn’t go away.

   Whoever was watching didn’t seem very interested in doing any more than that, though. Dean didn’t see anything, not a single movement in the corner of his eyes. It was probably his own paranoia that was playing games on him.

   “I’m sorry,” Dean told Jo when he was finally finished. He wished he could give her a proper burial instead of clumsily lowering her body into the ground and covering it, but it was the best he could do. “Shit, Jo, I’m so sorry.”

   _Not your fault, Dean._ He could hear her say it, in his head. But it was. If he’d just reset that panel once they’d taken out the heat chip, it wouldn’t have buried itself into her side. Sector C was a mess, but she could’ve survived the crash. _He_ had.

   He knew that in the end, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t survive here. There was nothing to survive on. Shit, it would’ve been better if he’d died in that crash himself. But selfishly, he thought that at least he wouldn’t have been so alone.

   His body, which had been hurting ever since he woke up inside the ship, had finally had enough. He wasn’t gonna make it back to the wreck that was their ship again. His leg was giving out from underneath him—he’d been putting too much pressure on it, and now that the adrenaline is seeping out of him, he was starting to feel it even worse. He told himself it was fine, there was nothing to get back to anyway, he’d already seen that much. He tried not to think of Sam back on Earth. Sam would never know what really happened, might never know it wasn’t simply a crash. How much danger they might all be in back on Earth.

   Dammit, but Dean wasn’t ready to die.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean was expecting it, but it was still a shock when the creature was suddenly right next to him in the mouth of the cave. Its eyes were still glowing, and they were staring directly at Dean. Up close, they were surprisingly bright. They nearly blinded Dean when he tried to look at them directly. So he did what instinct told him to do.
> 
> He flung one arm over his eyes and with the other drove the screwdriver right into the creature’s chest.

**Two.**

   When Dean opened his eyes, he couldn’t see a thing. He blinked a few times, but his surroundings stayed dark enough that he couldn’t even see his own hand when he waved it in front of his face.

   _I’m blind. I’m alive, and I’m blind._

   It made no sense at all. All he knew was he couldn’t be dead, because he could still feel the pain in his body and there was no way that was a thing when you died. At least, he hoped not.

   The second thing he noticed was that he wasn’t wearing a mask.

   His hand flew up to his face as if to check, but he didn’t need to feel the stubble on his cheeks to know the mask was gone. There was no pressure on his face where there should have been, and breathing felt too natural to be through a mask.

   The hell?

   He tried to scramble up, but, having forgotten about his bad knee, he didn’t make it very far. That ruled out his vague hope that the crash had been nothing but a dream. So that meant he was actually on that wasteland of a planet, without a mask, and he couldn’t see a thing. Not very great odds.

   He felt around for his mask, but it was impossible to find it in this darkness. He must’ve lost it somewhere while he was out. But he still had his belt, and it didn’t seem like he’d lost anything that was stored in there: his tools, Jo’s computers, a few packages of food and two full water bottles. A bit more than usual for a belt, but it had managed to hold it all.

   And he still couldn’t walk.

   But he could crawl. It was slow going with only three limbs to lean on, but he was moving and it was better than nothing. The ground was hard and cold, but it was also surprisingly even. It hadn’t looked like that earlier.

   It was a good thing he was going so slowly when he suddenly bumped head-first into something hard. When he felt at it with his hand, he realized wasn’t as smooth as the surface of the ship. It didn’t even feel like metal. It was more like rock.

   Except he was pretty sure he hadn’t been close to any walls when he passed out. He hadn’t been close to anything but the wreckage of his ship, and that wasn’t made of rocks.

   Suddenly he felt vulnerable, down on the ground. He remembered the feeling of being watched as he was digging Jo’s grave. There couldn’t be anyone out here. If any of his crewmates had somehow miraculously survived the crash, and Dean hadn’t found them, surely they would’ve let him know somehow. And the surface of this planet didn’t look very inviting in the bright bluish light of its sun.

   To his left, the ground seemed to be sloping upwards. He was taking that direction then, hoisting himself up on one leg and making his way parallel to the wall in a way that could only be described as hopping, which he’d never so much as think too loudly. If he was gonna die here, he’d do it with some shred of dignity left in him. Never mind that it took ages to get anywhere this way, and by the time he had made it a few meters, he couldn’t go on without finishing half a water bottle. Too much in too little time, if he wanted to survive much longer. Which he wasn’t too sure about.

   At least he knew now he hadn’t gone blind, at least not entirely. It was somewhat brighter here. He could actually see the shape of his own hands.

   Thank fucking god.

   He had to be in some sort of cave. It would explain how he woke up in total darkness, ‘cause by the looks of it, there was an entrance on his left and it was night outside. He hobbled in that direction, cautiously. He wasn’t inside the ship, he was somewhere natural, and he couldn’t have gotten here on his own. It wasn’t like he could’ve walked.

   Hugging the wall, he peeked around the rock next to the entrance.

   The stars looked strikingly similar to how they looked from Earth, and at the same time they didn’t. This wasn’t the same solar system, and these weren’t the same stars. But it wasn’t just that, it was how many _more_ there were. Dean never had much patience for stargazers, since it was a waste of time and they weren’t exactly a mystery anymore. These days, everyone knew exactly what the planets and moons in their solar system looked like and consist of. Space travel had gotten much more advanced than it used to be, before the war. It was the only thing that had.

   Besides, it wasn’t like you could see the stars from Earth very well. But things were different here. The air was clearer. Dean wished vaguely that not all his computers were broken, so he could send his nerd brother a recording of the view.

   Sam.

   There was no time to worry about him now, though, not while he wasn’t sure what was going on yet—and without a way to contact him even if he did have the chance. Dean would figure out a way if he somehow managed to survive a few more days. If not… well. Probably better for Sam not to know all the details.

   He inched a little closer, trying to see as much of the surface as possible. There was not much to see. It looked exactly the same as it did at the crash site, except darker.

   No, that wasn’t right. It looked like the ground was moving—just a relatively small heap of rock, but _moving_ nonetheless.

   Dean ducked back behind the relative safety of the cave wall, grabbling for any tool that he could use as a weapon. Whatever that thing outside was, it didn’t sound like anything he knew.

   This godforsaken planet couldn’t possibly be inhabited. Come on, after everything, Dean would really like to dehydrate in peace.

   A loud crash came from outside the cave, and Dean couldn’t help himself. He had to see.

   He chanced another look.

   It was huge. Whatever it was, it had wings, big enough to stretch out meters above its body as it crouched down on whatever had been moving on the ground. Dean could only see its silhouette, but he saw it lift its head, two pinpricks of icy blue light showing what must be its eyes, and he yanked himself away from where the thing might see him.

   Holy crap, he couldn’t be seen by that.

   Earth ships had never landed on this planet before, but it had been circled by unmanned robot ships in the ongoing search for resources. This planet was written off almost immediately, if it was the one Dean is assuming it is when he thinks about it. The robot had determined from a distance that there were no valuable, sustainable resources to be found here. Just rock, the same kind they had on Earth, which seemed to be one of the few things they never run out of.

   Just rock. Nothing else.

   Dean wondered if he was hallucinating. Maybe he was really still lying next to Jo’s grave, completely delirious, all of this just in his mind. That would make more sense than anything being alive out there.

   He grasped the screwdriver he just took out of his belt firmer and steadied himself. Hallucination or not, he’d rather not go down without a fight. And even if no one else would ever know, at least it was more honourable than dehydrating alone.

   He tried to convince himself the creature could never enter the cave, not considering its size, but who knew? Something got Dean in here, and if it was that thing, then it knew where he was.

   Dean was expecting it, but it was still a shock when the creature was suddenly right next to him in the mouth of the cave. Its eyes were still glowing, and they were staring directly at Dean. Up close, they were surprisingly bright. They nearly blinded Dean when he tried to look at them directly. So he did what instinct told him to do.

   He flung one arm over his eyes and with the other drove the screwdriver right into the creature’s chest.

   The intensity of the eyes faded a little as Dean lowered his arm to see what he’d done. He’d never hurt anyone like that before, and he was dreading the sight of such a blunt, ordinary tool wedged into a body. But there was nothing. No blood seeping out around it. No body convulsing on the ground. Just the creature, looking at him with a strange sort of interest that was making Dean uncomfortable, and a handle sticking out of its chest.

   Dean stared at the screwdriver. The alien slowly redirected its gaze as well. Pulled the metal out of its chest with a quite human-looking hand like it was nothing. Dropped the tool carelessly to the ground.

   “Who are you?” Dean snarled, because apparently when he was scared his brain stopped working. That creepy gaze was lifted back up to Dean’s face, but the creature said nothing. It just stared. Probably it didn’t even understand what Dean was saying. _Of course it doesn’t speak English,_ Sam’s voice admonished him inside his head. _That’d be absurd, Dean, it’s an alien._

   Alien.

   It only hit Dean now. In all of human history, no one had ever encountered extra-terrestrial life before, and he really wished he weren’t the first.

   For an alien, the creature looked disappointingly humanoid, now that Dean took a good look at it for the first time. It even was a lot smaller than it had looked outside. The wings were still there, but folded behind its back as to not be in the way, and other than the glowing eyes his face looked no different from a human’s as far as Dean could see in the faint starlight. By human standards, it’d be male.

   Huh. He’d always thought if they did find life on other planets, it’d be spectacularly different. Maybe like those shrunken guys with the big heads and long fingers that their ancestors on Earth had been so obsessed with.

   Bright-Eyes was saying something, but in some garbled language that Dean didn’t understand a word of, in a voice much deeper than any Dean had ever heard before. Like the guy ate rocks for dinner.

   Maybe he did. There was nothing else out here, after all.

   Dean’s stomach grumbled at the thought of dinner. He’d been feeling kinda empty up until now—not the kind of empty where your stomach starts cramping, but the kind where you don’t even realize you’re hungry anymore. He couldn’t even remember when he last ate, and then it was dried fruit, of all things. Dean would give anything to have meat again, but that was probably out of the question. It was enough of a rarity on Earth. He hadn’t had it for years, long before prison, when his father was still alive.

   Bright-Eyes took a step forward, and Dean felt himself bump into the wall behind him, convinced that this was when the claws came out. He was fumbling for any other tool in his belt even though he’d seen the damage his screwdriver didn’t do, but all that happened was that he could feel Jo’s communicator that he’d tied around the belt slip away.

   The creature grabbed his right arm, and that was it. _This is it._

   Bright-Eyes swung Dean’s arm over his shoulder and, holding up the injured human, started moving deeper into the cave, back where it was pitch dark. Dean wanted to struggle, he did, but he found it impossible to do so with the death grip on his dominant arm and his incapability of moving his injured leg.

   It wasn’t as painful as when he tried moving by himself, but it was close. Whatever he did to his knee, putting pressure on it unsurprisingly made it worse. He could live with everything else—Dean was used to injuries. Being the top mechanic meant getting the most difficult jobs as well as the best ones.

   He was okay with all that. It was the immobility caused by his knee that bothered him. It made him vulnerable, and given the current situation, that wasn’t a state he should be in.

   Not like he had much of a choice, though, and this creature was stronger than it looked.

   Apparently, they weren’t in a cave so much as an underground tunnel, because Dean was pretty sure they’d been walking for a while when he finally saw something again that wasn’t the creature’s glowing eyes. The alien seemed to have no trouble seeing in the dark with those. They didn’t bump into any walls, at least.

   But then there was light reflecting off something in the tunnel. Not bright light, but the natural light from outside, which seemed clearer than it did when they left the mouth of the tunnel. It must be close to daytime.

   The death grip on Dean’s arm slackened, and he let out an involuntary sigh of relief because it had been cutting off his circulation. He was lowered to the ground, and Bright-Eyes actually took a step back. He kept watching, though, and Dean felt a bit like a prey in a spotlight, even though he realized how ridiculous that was. If the alien wanted to kill him, he would’ve done so already.

   So why were they here?

   They stayed in that position for a while, both waiting till the other moved. It was the alien that did, in the end. He took one, two steps further in the direction they’d been moving in and crouched down.

   It was only then that Dean realized exactly what kind of place Bright-Eyes had taken them to, because he was scooping up something Dean hoped was water with Dean’s own flask, one which he was pretty sure he dropped next to Jo’s grave when he fainted. The soft outside light coming in from above was reflecting off an underground lake.

   “That’s not by any chance drinkable, is it?” Dean managed to croak out before dissolving in a violent cough that hurt like hell in his dry throat. He didn’t get a reply, but Bright-Eyes did get up and made his way to Dean, handing him the flask.

   “Thanks,” Dean told him. He was still a bit wary, and his instincts were telling him not to trust this stuff—for all he knew, it could poison him—but his throat was screaming at him to just give it a shot anyway. If he didn’t hydrate soon, he was gonna die whether he drank poison or not.

   He forced himself to take no more than a small sip at first, not for fear it might be toxic but because he had seen dehydrated people before. He never actually experienced it himself until now, but he remembered what it looked like when they started gulping large quantities of water.

   Clean water was hard to come by these days.

   Fuck, did Dean hate their ancestors and their times of plenty and waste, overindulging without a care in the world. They still learned about it in school, the tons of meat the people ate and the destruction of the forests to make way for them. They called it the Technological Age, because their ancestors used to have some advanced shit—trains that allowed you to move over land so fast it was hardly worth looking out the window because your eyes couldn’t keep up; cars, for those who wanted to travel more direct or without other people. Cars went slower, so you could actually see your surroundings change as you travelled, but it was pretty likely no one took the time to appreciate that back then. Dean hardly looked outside while they were on the ship, either, and that was his first space trip.

   Still, if you got the chance to travel on Earth now, supposedly there was nothing to see at all anymore. It was no less a wasteland than this planet, except there were still people roaming around in cities surrounding technological centres. There were still cars on Earth, but those were only for Officials who had to travel to another of those centres far away. Regular people weren’t allowed to use them, hadn’t been for decades. They no longer ran on harmful petrol—they had no means to find it anymore, and all the reserves had gone stale years ago—but there were so few of them left.

   The old train tracks were all gone. The copper was deemed more useful for other things, in the end. Like patching up old spaceships.

   Dean took a tentative second sip of the stuff and wet his lips. At least he wasn’t dead from poison yet. Whatever it was, it didn’t taste unlike water on Earth, only sweeter.

   He hadn’t even realized Bright-Eyes had left again until he returned, this time holding something more like a pouch that must be his own. He knelt next to Dean and tapped his knee.

   Dean hissed in pain. “What the hell, man?”

   It was hard to tell, but he thought Bright-Eyes actually rolled his eyes. And then, before Dean realized his intention, the guy ripped off the better part of Dean’s trouser leg.

   “What the hell?” Dean said again, trying to pull away.

   But in the now semi-darkness, even he could see the damage to his knee. There was a deep gash running along the side of it, and it had started bleeding again. He hadn’t realized he’d been bleeding at all, but there was a fair amount of dried blood there that had run all the way down to his calf. That explained the burning feeling when the fabric was ripped away. He could already smell the metallic tang of his own blood.

   That wasn’t all, though. His flesh was swollen all around the wound and his skin was discoloured and hot. Hobbling around on that leg without realizing something cut through his suit and flesh alike probably hadn’t helped, either. Great. Looked like it was infected, and Dean guessed they didn’t have advanced medicine here.

   He must’ve been out longer than he thought before he woke up in the cave somehow.

   Liquid hit his knee in a steady trickle and he wanted to pull up his leg in reflex, but Bright-Eyes was faster, holding his leg down until Dean relaxed, and even then he only weakened his grip, but didn’t let go.

   Now that their surroundings were getting brighter, Dean had the chance to see the guy properly, rather than in the darkness of the cave’s entrance.

   His wings, still folded against his back, were as jet black as Dean thought. They did seem to have a bluish glow, but so did everything else here, so Dean was gonna assume that was just their weird-ass sun. The guy’s hair was nearly as dark, short but messy. The less dark it got in their tunnel, the less bright the alien’s eyes became, but maybe that was just a trick of the light. They did seem less like flashlights, and more just… blue.

   Mostly, the guy looked very human. More so even than Dean had initially thought. Not just humanoid—without the wings and the eyes, Dean might’ve been convinced their ship wasn’t the first that crashed here. Bright-Eyes was walking on bare feet, but he was otherwise fully clothed in a cloth that was wrapped around him in a complicated way that Dean didn’t have or patience time to figure out.

   “You seem pretty familiar with injuries for someone who doesn’t bleed,” Dean said. He was ignored again. It was true, though; Bright-Eyes had been meticulously cleaning the wound, which already looked much better now that it was clean.

   The guy must’ve gone further than the lake to get resources this time, because he was covering the wound with something purple Dean had never seen before and then bound it with the fabric of Dean’s pants he ripped off earlier. It didn’t seem very hygienic, but it didn’t look like there was anything better around.

   “Thanks,” Dean told the guy a second time, because whether he understood Dean or not, it felt wrong not to say anything.

   Bright-Eyes twisted up the corners of his mouth in something that could be a smile.

   “Why?”

   His tone must be obviously incredulous, because Bright-Eyes looked at him and shrugged. He didn’t have to do any of this. Hell, Dean tried to kill him the moment he came close enough, and yet the guy never even tried to do anything but help him. The thought made Dean’s stomach churn with guilt.

   “You could’ve left me out there,” Dean said. It was stupid to keep trying to talk to the guy in English, but he couldn’t help himself. “You didn’t owe me shit.”

   He didn’t know why he felt the need to point that out. Bright-Eyes knew that much himself, and he didn’t get any of what Dean was saying anyway. Except judging by the look on his face, he kinda did. He nodded in what looked like agreement, with a serious look on his face that made Dean tend to believe he wasn’t just nodding to placate him. He didn’t say anything, though, and the silence hung heavy in the air.

   Dean cleared his throat awkwardly. “So—you got a name or anything?” It sounded stupid even to his own ears, and he’d really like for the ground to swallow him up right now, but that seemed about as possible here as it was on Earth. “I’m Dean. Dean Winchester.”

   Bright-Eyes nodded. He looked like he was thinking hard, his forehead creasing, and finally repeated slowly, “Dean.” He nodded again. “I am Castiel.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pain of being unable to talk to his brother was nearly unbearable. Sam had lost enough already, what with their parents dying so young. Not like Dean had been all that useful while he was in prison the past years, so not much had changed there, but he couldn’t leave Sam thinking he was dead either. Not if he had anything to say about it.

**Three.**

   Being stuck on this planet wasn’t unlike the early hours of the day back on Earth, after the prison master had done his rounds but before they were made to get ready for the day. The biggest difference was that it wasn’t so much that he was not allowed to leave, but that he couldn’t. The wound on his leg was slowly healing up, but he was still unable to use it. So he was stuck at the underground lake, trying to fix any of his computers—Bright-Eyes brought back Jo’s computer and the screwdriver Dean had stabbed him with that first day. The guy had balls, Dean had to give him that.

   He was so deep in the guy’s debt by now he didn’t think he’d ever be able to repay him.

   Dean had been spending every waking hour working on the wrist computer and the communicators, for more reasons than one. If it worked the way he hoped it would, he might be able to talk to Sam, tell his brother that he was alive and not to worry for now. Working on something also kept his mind off other things he’d rather not think about—like the rest of the crew, the ruined ship a sight still burned on his retina.

   He’d taken his own communicator apart; it was too banged up to be reusable, but its components were not. He had no use for two communicators that only worked with the other anyway. He had no one to communicate with here.

   As if on cue, Castiel came into view. He was probably bearing food, since Dean couldn’t go out and get any himself. Besides, he’d have no idea where to get it. Both from what he saw with his own eyes and what he knew from robot explorations, this planet was supposed to be dead: no people, no water, no food. And yet here he was, alive and near a source of water-like liquid, being brought weird-tasting food by some humanoid alien.

   Dean wasn’t sure what the food was that he’d been given so far, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He could ask, but the best he’d get would be some word he didn’t understand and maybe a drawing in the mud-like substance near the surface of the lake. Castiel didn’t speak English any more than Dean spoke whatever language it was Castiel spoke, despite the flicker of hope Dean had felt when the guy told him his name. He’d just been repeating Dean.

   It wasn’t food Castiel brought this time, though. He was holding something that looked gleaming and silver, and Dean realized they were loose parts of the machines in Sector C.

   “You went into the ship?”

   Castiel pointed at the electronics surrounding Dean, and then at the stuff he was holding, looking at him questioningly. Dean wanted to be angry. He wasn’t sure why—the wreckage was out in the open, and it was hardly like he could forbid the guy to go near it, was it? And yet it almost felt like holy ground, some place everyone should stay away from because it was the place of a tragedy, the last resting place of people Dean might go so far as call friends if he really thought about it. You didn’t travel for months with people without getting to know them, after all.

   But there was a feeling of gratefulness that overrode any anger he was feeling, because Castiel was right: it was better to have more to work with if he wanted to finish this project anytime soon. If it was going to work at all.

   He nodded his thanks.

   Castiel sat down next to him, laying out the stuff he’d brought on the ground. And then he just watched Dean work, handing over things Dean couldn’t reach without having to move his hurt leg which was splayed on the ground in front of them. It was like the alien was trying to learn by watching him closely. If it wasn’t so crucial that this worked, Dean thought he would’ve liked to teach the guy. He wondered if they had any technology here, but he didn’t deem it likely. Still, considering everything else—for all he knew, they had enormous underground labs or something.

   Sam would be thrilled about that.

   The pain of being unable to talk to his brother was nearly unbearable. Sam had lost enough already, what with their parents dying so young. Not like Dean had been all that useful while he was in prison the past years, so not much had changed there, but he couldn’t leave Sam thinking he was _dead_ either. Not if he had anything to say about it.

   (Maybe it was just a selfish wish, because he wasn’t sure if his biggest reason for wanting to talk to Sam wasn’t just to hear a familiar voice again. Dean was that kind of asshole. Given the circumstances, he hoped he could have a free pass on this one.)

   The probability of it wasn’t too high, though. He’d been working on this without pause whenever he wasn’t sleeping or could barely see anything because of the darkness of the night; his eyes were irritated and his hands had started shaking, which wasn’t all that constructive when you worked with such small components. But he had to do this. He didn’t know what he’d do if he could never have any contact with Earth again.

   Private contact. Not with their ground control. The ship had been sabotaged; if whoever did it found out Dean was still alive and kicking—shit, anything could happen. These people blew up the mechanical sector of an invaluable spaceship just to make sure the surface of Atala wouldn’t be reached—there was no other logical reason. They knew people would be killed, and they didn’t care.

   Dean’s hands paused for a minute. Contacting Sam might be the worst decision here. The moment Sam found out about him, about what had happened, he’d be in danger.

   Castiel put a hand on Dean’s shaking arm. Dean stared at it. The guy was incredibly warm, and it was almost like the warmth was spreading through Dean’s entire arm, relaxing his muscles and stopping him from shaking so badly.

   “I’m fine,” he said. “It’s—fine.”

   Castiel cast him a look that obviously meant _if you say so_. Dean ignored it. It was goddamn fine.

*

   He lost track of time of how long he’d been there, stacked away in that cave with nothing but Castiel’s silent presence for company every now and then. It felt like it had been ages, but at the same time it couldn’t have been more than a week.

   Being stranded here wouldn’t be so bad if he could just go somewhere. Explore the planet. Castiel lived here, so that meant there had to be places to live in. Others of his kind. But every time Dean had to take a piss he was reminded that no, his leg hadn’t healed yet, and no, he was not capable of standing up for any longer than it took to get out of the way and finish his business. He was tired and angry again—with Earth, with the situation, with himself. Mostly, he was angry at Castiel for not letting him die when he could’ve. It was the alien’s fault he was in this situation.

   Rationally, Dean knew he should be grateful he was alive. He also knew it wasn’t Castiel’s fault he was stranded here. The problem was that Dean wasn’t exactly known for being rational. He just needed to be angry at something.

   All in all, it was probably a good thing all around when there were finally sounds coming from the communicator he was working on, because he was about to start taking out more than a little of his frustration on Castiel just because the guy was the only one who was there.

   It wasn’t a voice, he wasn’t that lucky. It was just white noise, but at least something was happening, so he was gonna count that as a good sign.

   He couldn’t believe he’d gotten to this point.

   Still, he bowed back over his work. If he could just increase the distance of the frequencies the communicator could reach…

   Dean was tired as hell, but he wasn’t about to quit now even when his surroundings were starting to get dark again. He just gave up the tinkering and fiddled with the touchscreen instead.

   He was almost dozing off when the white noise started falling away.

   Dean sat up so fast he could’ve been struck by lightning. He didn’t dare say anything. If it wasn’t just a ruse—if there was actually someone on that frequency at all… It could be anyone, and Dean was not looking to give away his continued existence to the world yet.

   It should be Sam on the other side. He’d been looking for Sam’s personal communicator—his brother had one because he worked for EGC—but that didn’t ensure that would be the one his own had connected with. For all Dean knew, it was four in the morning and Sam was still curled up around his girlfriend, fast asleep. Or Dean was wrong and it was that bitch Ruby waiting for him to say something, the girl who suggested sending him on this trip in the first place.

   Dean had never trusted Ruby for shit.

   “Hello?”

   The voice sounded tired, and distorted through Dean’s poor excuse of an intergalactic communicator, but he’d recognize it anywhere.

   “Anyone there? Shit, I think it might be broken…”

   “What’s going on?” Another voice asked, so soft Dean could barely hear it over the connection. “Sam…”

   “It started beeping,” Sam said, defensively. “Like some unknown device was on my frequency.” He paused. “If anything—”

   “They’d let you know.”

   “He’d contact me first,” Sam said stubbornly.

   “I’m not saying he wouldn’t try.” Dean was pretty sure the second voice was Jess, Sam’s long-term girlfriend. He hadn’t met her often; in fact, it might’ve been just one time. They got together after Dean was imprisoned. He liked her, though. She seemed good for Sam.

   “But we don’t know if he can,” she went on. “You have to take care of yourself.”

   “Yeah, I know.”

   Realizing he was gonna miss his window if he was gonna wait much longer, Dean cleared his throat. “Heya, Sammy.”

   There was a crashing sound and Sam loudly cursing in the distance, which suggested he probably _had_ been  asleep before the sounds of an incoming unknown device woke him up. He couldn’t have dropped it if it was on his arm.

   “Dean? Dean! Is that you? You heard that too, right?” He said the last part to Jess, who hummed in agreement that her boyfriend wasn’t going crazy.

   “Yeah—Yeah, it’s me.”

   “What happened? We haven’t heard from you for _weeks_!” He sounded a little panicked, which would be funny if he didn’t have all the reason to be. He was wrong, though. Dean had been in this place for a few days, a week tops—or maybe a bit more if he’d been out for longer than he’d initially thought, right after the crash. There was no way he would’ve left his brother without any information for weeks. Hell, he would’ve dragged himself back to the ship and see if there was anything salvageable in the control room, with or without the use of his leg.

   He should do that when he got the chance anyway. It was a miracle in itself that he had managed to make this work with nothing but the tools he had—board computers had far more components, after all—and he wasn’t sure how long the communicator was gonna hold. He didn’t want to take any chances with this.

   “Why aren’t you calling from the board computer?” Sam asked when Dean didn’t immediately acknowledge him. “We can’t make contact with it, it’s like it just dropped off the radar. Is it something with the radiation over there?”

   There was a long silence after that. Dean knew he should tell his brother, but somehow it was impossible to force out the words.

   “Dean,” Sam said slowly. “Are you—did you arrive? On Atala?”

   “…No?”

   The silence turned heavier. Dean could picture his brother exchange glances with Jess right then and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “We crashed,” he finally said. It was the first time he said the words out loud, and his stomach felt like it wanted to throw its contents out along with them. “We were nearly there and—there was a deficiency in the engine behind mechanical.” He closed his eyes, but all it did was to remind him of what Jo looked like after the impact had flung them and the steel plate through the sector. He had to tell them, but he didn’t know if it was safe.

   “What?” Sam and Jess asked at the same time.

   “Everyone’s dead,” Dean said. He could hear his own voice break and he hated himself for it. “I buried Jo.” _It’s my fault she’s dead._

   “Dean…”

   But Sam nor Jess seemed to know what to say to that. He didn’t blame them.

   “I couldn’t reach you at EGC.” There was no time for emotional conversations here. He had to give them a warning. _Is it safe for us to talk about this?_

“I’ll see if I can fix that,” Sam said.

   It wasn’t likely someone was tapping the frequency, because as far as they knew Sam had nothing to hide. Until now, he hadn’t. Better safe than sorry, though. Dean had never been a trusting person, but damn him if he was gonna take any chances now.

   “It’s good to hear from you,” said Sam, because there was nothing else to say right now.

   There had been a time when at the slightest mention of feelings, Dean would’ve made a jibe at his little brother. Now he felt too grateful to hear a familiar voice—the only one he’d trust right now. “You too, Sammy.”

   He turned off the communicator after another silence and refused to acknowledge the lump in his throat.

*

   If Castiel noticed a change in Dean’s demeanour after that, he did a good job of acting like he didn’t. Or maybe Dean just didn’t notice. It wasn’t like they interacted all that much. Cas brought food and took care of Dean’s leg, which had finally healed enough that Dean was at least able to move it a little without crumpling in pain. He was starting to think it might have been broken.

   Shit, he was eager to get the hell outta this place. It was far from a small cave, but it was starting to feel claustrophobic anyway.

   The moment he would tell Sam about Cas, the younger Winchester was probably gonna yell at Dean for not trying to connect with the guy more. Sammy was always the one with the space obsession. _Don’t you get it, Dean? Anything could be out there!_

   Dean didn’t care as long as _anything_ was better than Earth.

   Anyway, it was great that Cas had helped him so far, but Dean didn’t like being dependent on anyone. He had finally managed to get close enough to the lake to wash himself, and the absolute worst thing about that was that it was almost an _accomplishment_.

   Also, he smelled really sweet now and it was weird as hell. He was used to smelling like sweat and grime—they tried to keep as clean as possible, but especially in prison water was rationed and hygiene was not a priority over hydration. Dean couldn’t remember the last time he was properly clean. Not like he’d have stayed clean for long in that shithole.

   Castiel seemed to notice _that_ , though, if the look he gave Dean the next time he came around was anything to go by.

   “What?” Dean snapped.

   “Your smell. Like the _zodinu._ ” He gestured towards the water.

   “What, you people don’t bathe?” He blinked. “Hold up—you speak English?”

   “My brother… taught me.”

   “Yeah?” Dean asked. “Where’d he learn that?”

   “Terra.”

   “There’s been aliens on Earth?” Dean repeated incredulously, because that wasn’t a word that was very hard to translate. “Oh, that’s just great.”

   Cas frowned. “Not an alien.”

   “Yeah, man, whatever.”

   Cas’ wings, the ones that Dean had almost (but not quite) stopped noticing were there, flared up at that comment. It made the guy look huge even when they weren’t fully spread out. “I saved you. You should show me… some respect.”

   “Yeah,” Dean said. “Okay.” And damn if he didn’t sound a little intimidated, but he was on the ground with no way to run and this guy just reminded him how much damage he could probably do to a human being.

   Cas nodded and suddenly he looked more like a regular human again. He sat down next to Dean and pointed at the radio with a questioning look.

   “What? Oh, I guess it works. I’m waiting for my brother to get back at me.” He turned to fiddle with it even though it wasn’t gonna be of any use. He had to wait for Sam to give him the all-clear. He’d thought he would’ve heard from him by now, though.

   Shit, what if something had happened?

   There was an awkward hand on his shoulder then. Cas looked like he wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure he could find the words.

   “It’s fine,” Dean said once again, sounding defensive to his own ears.

   There was a silence that lasted a few seconds before, almost as if on cue, the communicator started crackling. It took Dean all of a split second to grab it and shake off Cas’ hand in the process. “Sam?”

   “Yeah, it’s us. Me ‘n Jess.” He sounded tired, and the connection was far worse than it was the first time. It was only because Dean knew his brother so well that he could be sure it was Sam at all. “Dean, what happened? Where are you?”

   So he told him everything, trying to be as accurate as possible even though it hurt like a bitch to say it all out loud. It was almost therapeutic to get it all out. He hadn’t felt like talking about it, not to the only one he could talk to, but Sam was different.

   He got to burying Jo before he hesitated for a second.

   Sam took the pause to jump in with questions. “You’re on a planet that isn’t Atala? That means there’s another planet that might be survivable! That’s amazing, Dean!”

   There was a movement in the corner of Dean’s vision. He looked up at Cas, who was definitely looking worried now. Dean had the feeling from the very beginning that the guy understood English a lot better than he spoke it, and it was clear he didn’t like the excitement in Sam’s voice.

   “Yeah, well, don’t tell anyone, alright? We can’t have people swarming around here yet.”

   “I know.”

   Dean was pretty sure he could _hear_ the bitchface in those words. _I’m not stupid, Dean._

   “What happened then?” Jess prompted quietly, as though she was afraid to ask.

   “I uh… I passed out.”

   Sam swore. Dean shot another look at Castiel, who was staring at the communicator. Part of him wanted to tell Sam about Cas, tell him there was life on this planet and that he’d been saved by one of them, but the other part of him wanted to keep this information to himself. He told himself it was for Cas’s safety even though he knew he was being a selfish sonovabitch.

   “But that’s weeks ago,” Jess finally pushed. “We’re happy you’re alive, really, but… how?”

   “Got lucky,” Dean said, refusing to look at Cas even when he could see the guy look up at him from the corner of his eyes. “Found a cave with a freakin’ lake hidden in it, of all things.”

   “Right,” Sam said. “Dean…”

   “So you find out anything new?”

   He was being painfully obvious and he was aware of it. Honestly, he wasn’t even entirely sure why he didn’t want to tell Sam and Jess about Cas yet. It wasn’t like they could come over and steal him away. Intergalactic communication was difficult enough, travel was even worse—it was expensive, and not many of their ships were advanced enough to go this far, let alone with people in them who needed sleep and sustenance and not to be seventy years old by the time they arrived.

   Which made the question who would sabotage one even more pressing.

   “No, not yet,” Sam said. “We barely knew what was going on, remember? Everyone down here does seem to think you’re dead, though. We haven’t officially heard from your crew in just about three weeks since you were supposed to land.”

   Everyone. That included his surrogate father, Bobby. Dean felt a pang of guilt shoot through him like someone had stabbed a knife through his heart. And Sam was out there, pretending he didn’t know anything more than they did. “I’m sorry.”

   “I know. We’ll figure it out. And we’ll find a way to get you back, alright?”

   “Nah,” Dean said. He’d been thinking about this. Earth was dead, and yet someone felt the need to stop him from reaching the one planet that could save them. “I gotta get to Atala.”

   “Alright,” Sam said. “I… Okay.”

   “I’m supposed to be dead,” Dean said. “I can’t just go back. I gotta figure out what’s there that we weren’t supposed to find.”

   “No, you’re right. We’ll try to find out more from here. But Dean?”

   “Yeah?”

   “Be careful. If you can survive there, who knows what else is out there.”

   Dean shot another look at Cas and smirked, but the alien looked serious. Whatever. The connection wasn’t particularly good, he probably just didn’t get the irony. “I’m always careful, Sammy, you know me.”

   “Exactly.”

   “Shut up. You two look out for each other, yeah?” It felt like a goodbye. Bullshit, though. Dean was gonna try his damnedest to keep in contact with them. Hell, he’d find a way to get them off Earth if he had to. Whatever was going on, he had to make sure Sam got through it. He still remembered the last thing their father said before leaving on that last journey. _You take care of Sam, Dean. That’s your job now._

   Dean knew what it was like to grow up without a parental figure. It felt like you were abandoned in a shitty world. So yeah, he planned on honouring that last wish.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He left the cave for the first time since he entered it and just started walking. Which sounded easier than it was, what with his leg and the uneven ground outside the cave, but at least he was moving. Hobbling, but moving nonetheless.

**Four.**

   It was about two weeks after the crash—two weeks on this planet, anyway—when Dean finally couldn’t handle it anymore, which was longer than he ever thought he could deal with sitting still. But there was only so much rewiring he could do to the communicator, especially now that it already worked. Jo had always been better with tech stuff than he was, and as long as all the parts were in the right place inside, Ash could make anything work. Dean was just a mechanic.

   Anyway, he was bored, there was no one around to bother, and he had nothing else left to do. He was on a planet he knew next to nothing about. It was time to do something about it. Sure, that was a dangerous thing to do, but he wasn’t necessarily safe here either.

   He assembled his tools and the communicator, and all the parts of the other wrist computers he hadn’t used yet. He shouldn’t leave any evidence of where he’d been in case someone else came looking for him, even if so far no one had.

   His leg still hurt like a bitch when he tried to move it—something had to be fucked up pretty badly—but he managed, leaning against the wall on his good leg. Both his legs were stiff all over. Whatever. He was getting the hell outta here. There was light coming in from above, so at least he could see where he was going this time, but he figured it had to be the way he came from either way. At least he was sure there was an exit there.

   He wasn’t going any faster than he did the first day here, but at least he was moving. Too loudly, ‘cause if anyone passed by there was no way they wouldn’t hear him, but it was hard to care about that now that he’d gotten it into his head that he needed to be outside. He should’ve asked Cas about the planet, about what was out there, but instead he mostly ignored him while trying to perfect his now intergalactic communicator. He hated himself for it now. It was stupid not to ask. Dangerous. He’d been so obsessed with talking to Sam it clouded his judgement.

   He should really know better by now.

   Some part of him felt like there had to be something else out there, something he impossibly missed, their robot ships impossibly missed. Houses, seas, trees. Someplace Cas went to when he wasn’t with Dean, where he got the food from. (Dean didn’t like to admit it, but he was starting to like those weird-ass fruits Cas brought him.)

   But it was still a wasteland.

   “Cas!” Dean hissed, because despite the fact that he couldn’t see anything or anyone, he wasn’t going to attract whatever he _couldn’t_ see by shouting. “You there?”

   Nothing. It almost looked like things did back at home, except there were buildings there. The air was similarly stale and kinda dusty, and there were no sounds of small animals here either.

   Dean didn’t get scared easily, but this was making him uncomfortable as hell. At least back on Earth he knew what he was in for.

   He left the cave for the first time since he entered it and just started walking. Which sounded easier than it was, what with his leg and the uneven ground outside the cave, but at least he was moving. Hobbling, but moving nonetheless.

   Thing was, it wouldn’t be so bad if his surroundings actually changed at all. He might as well have stood still for all the good it did him now. That was exactly why, when he did hear something, he assumed he imagined it.

   It was a weird-ass sound, too, that he couldn’t really compare to anything he’d heard before. A strange kind of rustle, not the kind trees made when a storm was coming up. Not that there were any trees or wind in the first place. In fact, when he turned around to see, nothing was there at all.

   It shouldn’t be such a relief that he was hearing things that weren’t really there, but it was. He hadn’t seen any liveable place yet, so there _shouldn’t_ be anything. And yet he couldn’t help but feel like he was being watched—again.

   Maybe he was finally going insane. Shit, maybe he’d been hallucinating all along, and Cas wasn’t even real, but Dean was so caught up in self-pity that he didn’t notice nor care. Wasn’t that what happened to people who’d been alone for too long? Was he really just dying slowly somewhere?

   Suddenly he was sinking to the ground, shaking like a goddamn leaf as the realization sank in. This was it, he was going to die alone and a nutjob on top of it, and he was not ready.

   There was that sound again, but this time Dean didn’t look up, because there would be nothing to see.

   He wanted to be stronger than this, breaking down so suddenly in the middle of nowhere, but what did it really matter? Who was going to see his final breakdown? His fingers fumbled with the communicator, trying to get it free and working, but it wasn’t easy when there were tears blurring his eyes. Screw this, all of it.

   He nearly sagged in relief when a familiar voice said, “Dean?”

   A hand was placed on his shoulder, and even if it wasn’t real, it felt real enough to Dean. If he was gonna die crazy, it might as well be with this hallucination by his side. At least it felt less alone. No one had to know.

   The communicator dropped to the ground. He was going to call Sam, which was a terrible idea because god knows where his little brother was right now, and it could get the kid in huge trouble if Dean called him while there were other people around. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to tell Sam— _I just realized I might be going insane. I think it might be because I’m really dying._ It was a terrible idea.

   “You’re not real,” he told the hallucination that was Cas.

   Cas tilted his head with a frown.

   “Please stay,” Dean said, voice croaking, and he didn’t even hate himself for asking it.

   “Of course.”

*

   This time when Dean woke up, it wasn’t in a cave. In fact, his first thought was _so this is Heaven_ , followed by the thought that there was no way that’s where he’d ended up. Not him.

   He sat up, looking around, and blinked his eyes like an idiot just to make sure it wasn’t all gonna be gone when he opened them again. This had to be a dream or something.

   It was a small room, but the walls were so light they could be crystal—for all he knew, they were—and it made it look bigger than it really was. It was empty except for the bed in the middle, which Dean was lying on and which was softer than anything he ever felt before. On closer inspection, the sheets were woven from tiny leaves, which looked white at first glance but on closer inspection seemed to be a combination of so many different colours it gave Dean a headache when he tried to figure it out. They were soft as feathers. It all sure looked like what he imagined people think Heaven was, those few people who still believed.

   It was comfortable, and clean, and it was weirding him out. Even more when he realized that the clothes he was wearing were clean, too, and they weren’t his own.

   He couldn’t remember the last time his clothes were clean. He wasn’t even sure what he was wearing—his chest was bare, but his legs were covered with something that felt much softer than anything he’d ever worn. He kinda wished for a shirt, but there were none in sight, and Dean wasn’t exactly prude about how he looked. It was the feeling that he was more vulnerable this way that bothered him.

   When he moved his hurt knee, there was no stab of pain going through his entire leg. It wasn’t exactly a nice feeling, and his legs were both stiff from disuse, but it was a far cry from the pain he felt before. And if he wasn’t mistaken, those were _crutches_ leaning against the wall. Not the basic things he saw back on Earth a few times, but shiny, new-looking crutches with proper grips and arm rests that they didn’t make like this back at home anymore.

   Dean had absolutely no idea what was going on or where he’d ended up, but he did know these crutches had been left here for him. So he took them, although he disliked needing help with anything; he was fully aware refusing them would damage his leg even more. With how long it took to get it healed this much, he was probably lucky he could still walk at all.

   The floor seemed to be made of the same stuff as the walls, and it was smooth under his bare feet. The cool of it on his skin grounded him. It was a strangely comfortable feeling, not in the least because it didn’t bother him at all that he wasn’t wearing any shoes. It was unlike him, because you didn’t want to find yourself unprepared and having to walk the rough surface of Earth without shoes, or go around the mechanical sector without their protection. But wherever he was, it wasn’t Earth nor a spaceship. He knew this when he opened the door of the room he woke up in and found himself in a long corridor. The entire setup was not unlike a hospital.

   That made him uncomfortable. He heard about the old speculations of aliens taking people for medical research, after all.

   The walls looked rougher here than the smoothness of the previous room, as though the crystal was really some kind of rock and the person who carved this place out didn’t feel like doing more work on bare hallways. It must be some sort of cave after all, which would make sense. Either that, or his own eyes lied to him and there were things on the surface of the planet after all, but the texture of the walls suggested differently.

   On top of that, Dean realized there were no windows from which any light could be coming in. The stuff this place was made of must be emanating some kind of glow, because he could see perfectly well here, even though it wasn’t as shiny and bright as sunlight. It was a bit claustrophobic. He wasn’t a fan.

   “Hello?”

   He moved slowly, not because of any kind of pain this time, but because the complete desolation of the place was making him nervous. “Anybody there?”

   “Hello, Dean.”

   He turned around so fast it nearly made him lose his balance. “Don’t _do_ that.” He frowned. “Cas?”

   Cas smiled, and it nearly knocked Dean off balance again. He was still not entirely convinced this wasn’t heaven even though he strongly believed that if such a place existed, they should’ve been able to heal him entirely. “So what are you, an angel or something?”

   The alien’s smile faltered a little, but he gestured for Dean to follow him. He let Dean set the pace, which felt only a little condescending after Dean realized he would never be able to keep up otherwise.

   It wasn’t a hospital. It was a house.

   There was a bigger room at the far end of the corridor; this one had lightbulbs hovering close to the ceiling that paradoxically gave the room an overall less creepy and unnatural look. There was a sofa there that looked much more comfortable than any Dean had ever seen before, all soft and big, and a huge hammock in the corner that was closer to the ceiling than the ground and in which Dean glimpsed sheets that were made of the same stuff as the ones he woke up underneath.

   There were other things there, too, things that Dean would associate with a living room if he had one: a small table made of the same kind of material as the floor and appeared to be attached to it, a freaking _rug,_ and several shelves filled with pots and other crap that Dean had no interest in for the time being. One side of the wall even had a space that Dean thought might be a kitchen.

   It all looked so disappointingly like a human living space, except nicer.

   “This your place?” he asked Cas.

   Cas looked away, somewhat uncomfortable. “Yes.”

   “That’s pretty cool, man.” He took a hesitant step forward, and when Cas didn’t stop him, he made his way further to the sofa. It was as comfortable as it looked. “This is awesome,” he amended. “Shit, you couldn’t bring me here before?”

   He wasn’t sure if Cas looked guilty or even more uneasy at that.

   “Hey—you probably had a good reason, yeah? I didn’t mean that.”

   “You are not _merifri_ ,” Cas said, and Dean thought that probably translated into _you’re not one of us._ “We are not supposed to let you into our homes.”

   Dean raised his eyebrows. “You have rules for that? Dude, how many humans have crashed on this planet?”

   Cas frowned. “You are the first human.”

   “So there’s been others? Non-humans?”

   The guy now looked shocked he told Dean such a thing, like it was a big secret. Maybe it was. “Sorry. I guess you’re not supposed to tell me that, huh.”

   “No.”

   Dean wasn’t entirely sure what to say or do in response to that.

   “Can you at least sit down? It’s your house, man, I feel bad if you’re standing up all the time. I can move over.” Hell, he could sit on the ground if that meant Cas would take a seat. He had his wings folded up, but Dean still felt like the guy was towering over him. He wasn’t sure why it mattered; the alien? angel? _merifri_? had saved him more than once already. If there was anything Dean could be sure of, it was that Cas wasn’t going to kill him anytime soon.

   Cas settled next to him on the sofa, as far away from Dean as he possibly could. It hurt a little, although Dean wasn’t sure why.

   “Look, I never properly thanked you. You saved my life. More than once. I guess I’m an idiot like that.” He scratched his neck awkwardly. “And now you let me in here when there’s probably a reason you didn’t before, and I’m acting like an ass about it. So sorry, I guess. And thank you.”

   Castiel’s features softened at the declaration. “I don’t understand,” he said. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved.”

   “Yeah, well, everybody else on my ship died. Those were good people, and someone decided they had to die.” And that reminded him of what he should be doing—he should be figuring out who blew up their ship, who decided that the five of them couldn’t reach the planet they were going for. “And yet I’m here. Out of all of us, _I’m_ the one who’s still here.”

   There was a look of pity on Castiel’s face that Dean couldn’t stand. “I am sorry. About your friends.”

   “Thanks,” Dean said bitterly. “But I gotta figure this out.” He was sitting up straighter now, ready to get up and get started on something, anything, as soon as he thought of it. “I can’t believe I wasted so much time sitting around on this planet. I should’ve—”

   Cas placed a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “No.”

   “What, ‘no’?”

   “You were recuperating. You need to take care of yourself.”

   “I’ve got no time for that crap!” Dean snapped. He was working himself up again. Who knew what was going on back on Earth? His kid brother was still there, and Jess and Bobby; what if something happened? And he told Sam and Jess about the situation, they could be in so much trouble if the wrong person found out. And what if this was just the start of something? Dozens of doom scenarios were fighting for dominance in Dean’s head, each one even less plausible than the other. Everyone he loved was down on Earth. If any of those scenarios ended up being true, there was nothing he could do to save them. He had to act fast. They had to figure this out before anything else happened.

   “…When did you get so chatty, anyway?”

   Cas frowned again and said nothing for a while. It was a tense silence that was only broken when Cas said curtly, “I will make us food.” He got up and moved to what Dean assumed to be the kitchen, leaving Dean to sit on the sofa feeling like a complete ass.

   The food, though, was great. They didn’t speak at all while Cas was making it, and Dean didn’t dare ask what it is he was about to eat in case he insulted Cas even more by implying it looked unrecognizable and bad. Not like he’d know it anyway.

   It looked quite good. Not the bland crap he got while still in the cave, which he didn’t mind then because it was food and it kept him alive and it was still better than what he used to get back on Earth. No, this actually looked _tasty_. Fresh, even. He took a bite and immediately his taste buds were flooded with things he couldn’t describe if he wanted to, because they were nothing like he was used to. There was nothing on Earth that could compare. “Holy crap.”

   Castiel turned to him with wide eyes.

   “That’s good,” Dean told him. Food on Earth all had the same dusty taste, even the fruit they still grew that was expensive as hell and supposed to be sweet and juicy. Dean didn’t even remember what that tasted like; he knew that when the fruit got dried, it just felt like he was chewing on something artificial.

   This, though. This was something Dean thought he’d never experience. He’d had meat, on very rare occasions when his parents were still alive, but it was nothing compared to this.

   “Thank you, Dean.”

   Dean tried to tell Cas it should be Dean thanking him, but he had his mouth stuffed full and all that came out was, “Nn, ang ou agnn.”

   The air felt lighter after that. _Dean_ felt lighter after that—it was the first time in what might be years that he wasn’t just ‘not hungry’, but _sated_ , and it lifted his spirits higher than he ever thought it could.

   He tried to get up and help when Cas started cleaning away the plates—flat, square things made of stone, by the looks of it—but the alien shook his head. “You need _page_. Rest.”

   “Nah, I need to contact Sam.” It was only then that he realized his arms were bare. He’d noticed he wasn’t wearing the suit and its belt the moment he got up—not something he could possibly have missed—so how could he have missed this little detail? You always wore your communicator in space. “Cas? Where’s my communicator?”

   Cas stared at him blankly.

   “C’mon, man, I really gotta keep in touch with Sam.” He kinda wanted to ask for boxers, too, and possibly a shirt, but he had got no clue if these aliens wore any. He hadn’t seen Cas wear anything but the tunic-like things so far, which made sense because it wrapped around his wings and left the joints free, but Dean would like something to _cover_ him.

   Cas muttered something that Dean didn’t catch as he started rummaging through his shelves. Apparently he stored it there; it looked a little worse for the wear because Dean dropped it, but at least it was still intact.

   The alien looked like there was something he wanted to say, but wasn’t sure how to say it. It was just another reminder that Cas wasn’t like him.

   Dean knew there were different languages on Earth, too, but he’d never met anyone who spoke any of them. Those people lived far away in places a regular guy like him couldn’t reach, which was ironic considering where he was now. Earth consisted of little clusters around tech centres. You stayed at the one you were born at forever unless you managed to get a job that got you elsewhere, which was generally reserved for people who had connections or were super smart.

   Dean was never going to be one of the lucky ones.

   He was from a place that he knew was once called Washington DC, on a continent called North America. It was close to the biggest space centre on Earth, so that’s what they focused on. The only way he could ever get away from their district was to get on a space ship, or to start walking and never stop.

   It had never been his dream to get away. That was Sam’s. Dean would have been perfectly content to stay in that place with the people he knew forever, no matter how shitty it was.

   But it didn’t turn out that way, and he guessed he was lucky Cas was turning out to be the fastest learner he’ ever encountered. “What’s that language you speak anyway?”

   The alien tilted his head. “Enochian,” he said, in a tone that suggested he didn’t understand how Dean didn’t know that.

   “Right,” Dean said. “Of course.”

   “ _Page_ , Dean,” Cas pressed.

   “Yeah, yeah, rest, I get it.” He got up from the sofa. Cas didn’t say so, but Dean assumed he could just go back to the room he came from, the one that looked like a hospital room. It was as impersonal as Dean’s old cell, and he wondered why Cas had a room like that when it looked like everything he needed was in this big room already. Not that that was extremely personalized, either, but at least it didn’t feel as cold.

   He told himself at least it was better than the cave so far. And Dean had never had the chance to be picky, anyway.

   “Hey, Cas—you didn’t by any chance save some of my clothes, did you?”

   “I will leave them in the room for you,” Cas said without even looking up.

   There was a lot more Dean wanted to say, but that was the moment the communicator started buzzing, perfect timing that Sam managed to have. Dean had never hit the screen to answer so fast in his life. “Sammy! What’s up?”

   “We’ve been trying to reach you for a while.” His tone was calm, but Dean could recognize it as worried anyway. Worried, and angry.

   “Right,” he said, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry. I er…. I zonked out again. Guess I’ve been out for a while.” Realizing this probably only made things worse, he added quickly, “No worries, man, I’ve been safe.”

   “Yeah? How, Dean? ‘Cause you passing out all the time sure as hell doesn’t sound very safe to me!”

   “I… I had help.” He glanced at Cas, who was looking at him curiously, but not as panicked as he had the first time he was there and thought Dean was gonna give him away. He looked like it might be okay if Dean let his brother know. “Cas, wanna say hi to my brother?”

   “Hello, Sam,” Cas said gravely.

   There was a sharp intake of breath that made Dean realize the reception was better than he had before in the cave. He made a mental note to ask Cas later if he’d done anything with the communicator or if it had something to do with the recent change in location.

   “There’s life forms out there?” Sam demanded. “You made friends with an _alien_?”

   “Not an alien,” Cas said with that frown of his, reminding Dean of their first conversation.

   “He doesn’t like it when you call him an alien,” Dean told Sam. “But I guess, yeah. His brother’s been to Earth.”

   “Shit,” Sam said, “that’s amazing.” He paused, and Dean knew it was because Sam had so many questions he didn’t know where to start. “What do they look like?”

   “Like us. But with huge wings and glowing eyes.”

   “Shit,” Sam said again.

   “Sammy, not that I’m not happy to hear from you, but was there a reason you called?” Sam had called just to check up on him before, but this call felt different somehow. Dean practically raised the kid, he knew when something was up.

   Sam sighed. “Jess thinks Ruby’s behind it.”

   It wouldn’t surprise Dean in the slightest if she was. Ruby oversaw Earth Ground Control, and Dean thought she was a total bitch. Not that he’d met her often—thank god for that—but when he did, she kept insulting him, and he just got a wrong vibe off her that he couldn’t explain to Sam if he tried.

   “What do _you_ think?” he asked his brother, not because he didn’t trust Jess’ judgement but because it was clear Sam was still doubtful.

   “I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “I’d expected deep investigations after you guys disappeared off the radar, and she did appoint some people to try and figure out what happened, but…”

   “Not very reliable investigations,” Dean guessed when Sam didn’t go on.

   “She said it was safe to assume the atmosphere wasn’t survivable to humans after all. That she’d put some people on it, but that we couldn’t miss too many. But someone would’ve stayed on the ship, right? Even if our technology was wrong, you would’ve had someone staying back to tell us if—?”

   “’Course we would, we’re not stupid.”

   “That’s what I thought,” Sam said. “So I kept an eye on her, the past weeks.”

   This suspicion wasn’t a recent thing, then. Dean had by now lost track of how many days he’d been on this planet, especially considering he probably lost a few, twice—but even then, a few weeks seemed a long time.

   “And?”

   “I don’t know,” Sam admitted. He sounded angry about it. “She does seem to be hiding something, but I can’t figure out what. I can’t exactly follow her everywhere she goes without looking suspicious.”

   “I dunno, Sam. She’s your boss, but she doesn’t control everything, does she? Maybe you should check out the guy who does.”

   “Yeah, because that’s definitely easier, break into Lilith’s office,” Sam said sarcastically. “I’m scared, man. If something really is going on here…” He paused, and Dean could see his brother worrying his lip in his mind. “We’ve got enough shit down here, why would anyone stop any progress to survival?”

   “You tell me. Look, you watch out for yourself and Jess, alright? Don’t put yourself in danger for this. I need you to stay alive.”

   “You too, Dean.”

   “Dean is safe here,” Cas interrupted them. “I will look out for him.”

   Dean tried to be flattered by that instead of telling the them that he could look out for himself. Considering his time on this planet so far, it wasn’t likely either of them would believe him.

   “Alright,” Sam said, a little doubtfully. Dean couldn’t blame him for that. His brother knew nothing about Cas, after all. “Thanks, Cas.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They ate in silence, during which Dean kept stealing looks at the alien because Cas might not be curious about him, but he was curious about Cas. For years, he had been told that sentient life hadn’t been found on any planet except Earth when apparently it was just their technology that sucked ass. And he never thought he’d be interested, but now that he was here, he kinda was.

**Five.**

   Dean’s leg was healing faster now that he was at Cas’s home, because the guy appeared to have an entire shelf filled with medicine and first aid stuff. He was almost insulted that Cas didn’t bring that stuff before, ‘cause it would’ve saved him a helluvalot of pain.

   “Medicine is… not easy to come by,” Cas muttered, as though he could read Dean’s thoughts. “I thought I could help you with natural herbs. I apologize.”

   “Don’t do that,” Dean said. “You didn’t have to help me at all, but you did. You got nothing to be sorry for.”

   Castiel smiled. “Gabriel told me a lot about humans,” he said, “but I find most of it to be untrue.”

   “Yeah? Like what, he told you we’re all super nice?”

   “Quite the opposite.”

   Dean snorted. “Are you telling me you think I’m nice, Cas?”

   “Somewhat rude,” Cas said dryly, “but yes.”

   “Was that a joke?” Dean asked gleefully. “Gee, and here I was thinking you were all work and no play.” But that just made the alien look at him in question again, and Dean shook his head. “Just an old Earth saying.”

   “Alright.” Cas got up, tapping Dean’s mostly bare leg. At least he was wearing clean boxers again—he tried not to think about how long it had been, because it grossed him out. But Cas hadn’t just saved the shirt Dean had been wearing under his space suit—the suit itself was unsalvageable, with half a pant leg ripped off and holes everywhere—he had apparently also searched for more than just things Dean could use to work on his communicator that first time. He said he’d wanted to give the clothes to Dean right away, but chose to prioritize his healing over the fight that would be putting on clean clothes, which just showed that he already knew Dean far too well.

   So he saved them somewhere in the cave and forgot about them until he had to get the suit off of Dean. Dean tried not to imagine how that happened. It was probably incredibly unappealing, getting that dirty rag off his dirty, unresponsive body, anyway.

   Part of him certainly hoped so. The other part certainly did not. Cas said it was a necessary part of cleaning him up, and he believed the guy, because everything he said was said with such a sincere look in his eyes that Dean wondered if the guy could lie even if he wanted to.

   “You can try walking without the crutches, but try not to put too much pressure on it yet. You have been lucky I got there fast.”

   “Where the hell do you think I’m going?” Dean said. “You’re stuck with me for as long as you allow me to with this leg.” He fucking hated it, because being stuck here meant he couldn’t find a way to get to Atala, or even back home. It meant he was wasting his time. But he couldn’t say that to Cas. Even Dean knew that’d be a dick move.

   There was a set to the alien’s lips that Dean didn’t like and that contradicted the words that came out of his mouth next. “You are welcome here as long as you like.”

   “I gotta figure out what to do next,” Dean said, not commenting on that because he wasn’t sure how. “I can’t stay here forever.”

   “Of course.”

   “So,” Dean said when the silence went on too long for his liking. “What is it you do here for fun?”

   “I study,” Cas said seriously.

   “Seriously?”

   “Knowledge is important,” said Cas. “I was learning English before.”

   Dean raised his eyebrows. “You were studying English? Wh—”

   Cas gave him a pointed look.

   Right.                                                                                                                                                      

   “Who are you guys anyway? No, scratch that, where are you guys? This planet is a friggin’ wasteland.”

   “It is not. Humans simply do not know how to look.”

   “… I don’t get it.”

   “You are not supposed to.” Cas’s voice was hard before he sighed and his shoulders slumped. “Our kind has made our world so that outsiders cannot simply enter it. It is a safety measure. It is dangerous for you to be here.”

   “Why?” Dean sat up straighter. “It’s not like I wanted to crash on this planet. We weren’t aiming for this one. Nothing was supposed to be here!” It dawned on him that that was probably the safety measure Cas was talking about, although it wasn’t something Dean would think possible. “So you all live underground?”

   There was that bitter set to the corners of Cas’s mouth again. “No,” he said, but he didn’t elaborate.

   “But you do.”

   “Yes.”

   Realizing he wasn’t going to get anything else out of the alien, Dean sat back again. “So is there anything for me to do here while I wait for my friggin’ leg to get back to normal?”

   “I do not own a lot of technology,” Cas said. “I find it doesn’t interest me.”

   “You guys have technology?”

   “Yes.”

   “Like what?” Dean had never seen technology used in any other ways than those deemed necessary for survival, but he knew in the Tech Age people used to have actual computers that they could play games on, and things called televisions on which they watched movies about space travel and other things that seemed impossible back then. That was about the extent of his knowledge, though. They didn’t get to learn about it in detail in school. In fact, generally, Dean hated school and managed to make himself forget half of what he _had_ learned about in detail. But this little fact stuck, because the people back then apparently imagined entirely different worlds from the one they lived in and didn’t realize how great they had it already.

   He would love to see some of those movies, even if just to see what those people fantasized about.

   “Many things that are too complicated to explain to someone who has never seen it,” Cas said, although Dean had the idea that it had more to do with the guy not feeling like explaining it. “I believe my brother has brought some ‘gadgets’ from Earth when he came back, but that was a long time ago. I do not know if he still has them.” He actually made air quotes with his fingers rather than just using inflection.

   “You gotta take me to this brother of yours sometime,” Dean joked. Cas didn’t look too happy at the suggestion. “Just kidding, man. Still, anything here I can do? Do I need to clean something? Do you need help cooking?”

   “You don’t have to—”

   “I know. I want to.” He could’t keep living off Castiel’s kindness without doing anything in return. It wasn’t right. Besides, in his experience, people were _always_ going to ask for something in return. Maybe if he offered to do chores, Cas wasn’t going to ask for anything else.

   He thought it was an actual smile he saw on Castiel’s face. “Alright. I will start cooking for us soon. You may help, if you would like to.”

   Dean wasn’t a good cook. Or rather, he had no idea if he was, because he hadn’t really had the chance to try it before. It wasn’t like they let you cook for yourself in prison, and even before that, he hadn’t had much to work with to begin with. He always tried to do the best he could with what he had, but that never meant much. Dean remembered having to force Sam to finish his meal when he was little because that could be all he was going to get for the day, even if Sam kept pulling faces. The kid learned fast enough that he didn’t have much of a choice.

   Dean had never understood why his parents had chosen to have two kids. Not many people made that choice. In fact, many, like Bobby and his late wife Karen, decided not to have children at all, because they didn’t want them to grow up in a world like this. So instead Bobby became a surrogate father for Dean and Sam, which worked out fine for all of them.

   Still, Dean thought he agreed with Bobby’s view. He’d never want kids with Earth being the way it was now. They might all be dead before he got a chance to even truly consider it, anyway.

   Having kids—especially more than one—just meant less food for all the family members. It was a bad decision for everyone. Dean wouldn’t want to lose Sam for the world, though. If it meant Dean had to starve (and there had been days that he thought he would) just to keep Sam alive, he would do it without thinking twice.

   What it came down to was that the most he’d ever done in terms of cooking was making soup, which meant just throwing random shit in hot water and hoping for the best. After Mary died, they had to live on one person’s credit, and that meant they could hardly afford anything, let alone anything healthy. And then John went off on that fatal trip, the one he took only because he was offered a lot of credits for them, and never returned. The credits were given to Dean, as the oldest child, and he had to ration them so that they would last as long as possible, but sometimes his resolve broke and he bought tiny slabs of meat that he barely remembered how to prepare. Just a few times, but they were expensive.

   Sure, Bobby took them in, but the old man could hardly keep himself alive with the few credits he got every month, so Dean would never turn to him for help. When his father’s credits finally started to run out, Dean had to take more desperate measures to feed Sam, who wasn’t by far old enough to take up jobs yet. So Dean tried finding jobs, but it wasn’t easy, and he tried not to tell Sam what was going on, which was even harder.

   That was part of why Sam was so disappointed when Dean got caught stealing. He kept saying, _If you’d just told me, I could’ve helped_ , and that just made Dean feel worse. He’d wanted Sam to concentrate on his studies. Sam had the potential to become a researcher, to get a good job at the tech centre and make something out of himself. He shouldn’t have to struggle finding jobs and failing his studies because of it.

   “I don’t really know how to cook,” Dean finally told Cas when the alien arrived with the supplies for whatever dinner they were having tonight.

   “I did not expect you to. This is not the kind of food you are used to.”

   Dean snorted. “Yeah, the kind of food I’m used to is bland crap that you just need to heat up. I haven’t made anything in years. We don’t… there’s not a lot of stuff to use back on Earth.”

   Cas looked at him with a kind of pity in his eye that Dean didn’t like. “I understand,” he said. “I remember.”

   He was talking about the first few meals Dean got here. Dean was actually a little embarrassed about his reaction back then. He wasn’t going to let that show, though. It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t had proper food in years.

   “Whatever. You can just tell me what to do and I’ll follow your orders.”

   “You may chop these,” Cas said, handing Dean some kind of what he thought was a vegetable.

   They worked in silence, but it was a comfortable one. Dean had no idea what he was doing, but he kinda liked doing it. It was relaxing, and it wasn’t too painful on his knee if he just kept most of the pressure on the healthy leg.

   After he finished chopping the probably-vegetable, Cas gave him a bowl to put the pieces in and told him to mix it with certain herbs, “No more than two herb spoons each.” An herb spoon, apparently, was a tiny thing that should scoop just enough out of the little jars to make it taste better, but not too strong.

   Dean had never used herbs before. He sniffed all of the little jars before putting the stuff on the vegetable and decided most of them smelled pretty good. Strong, compared to anything he was used to, but good. “So this adds to the taste, right?”

   “And the smell, as I notice you realized.”

   Dean flushed. “Shut up.”

   The corner of Cas’s mouth twitched upwards.

   “So what are we making, anyway?”

   “We call it _ugegi_ , as it is supposed to make a child grow big and strong. That is what we are told as children. It is the meat of one of our strongest animals, covered in healthy vegetables and a sauce.”

   “You had me at the word ‘meat’,” Dean said. It sounded not unlike meals he was told the richest had, although he would bet his life that even those meals were not as tasty as Cas’s.

   He needed to make sure he didn’t get used to this.

   Despite having said he wanted to help, he just watched Castiel while the alien prepared the rest of the meal. There was another bowl right in a small fire where the meat was stirring, and Cas kept adding stuff to it that made the water in the bowl thicker until it became more of a sauce. When he deemed it good enough, he took the bowl out of the fire and separated its contents in two smaller ones, along with the bowl that was still standing in front of Dean. The end result looked like a disgusting mix of all kinds of different foods randomly thrown in a bowl, but Dean had faith in it. He hadn’t had a bad meal in this house yet, and he _knew_ what constituted a bad meal.

   He was not disappointed now.

   “Dude, everything you make is amazing,” Dean said, mouth full of food. At Castiel’s look, he swallowed. “Sorry.”

   They ate in silence, during which Dean kept stealing looks at the alien because Cas might not be curious about him, but he was curious about Cas. For years, he had been told that sentient life hadn’t been found on any planet except Earth when apparently it was just their technology that sucked ass. And he never thought he’d be interested, but now that he was here, he kinda was.

   He wanted to ask Cas everything, but at the same time he just wanted to get outta there as fast as possible. He’d been hanging around on this planet for too long already, sitting around doing nothing but hoping to talk to Sam. It was pathetic, and he liked to pretend it hadn’t been as long as it had.

   Dean watched while Cas cleaned up. The past two days after dinner, Dean retreated to his room to give Cas the space to study, but he was getting restless.

   “So, Cas,” he said. “Whatcha doing tonight?”

   “I will be working,”

   “I thought you studied in the evenings.”

   “I am a researcher,” said Cas. “I have been doing research.”

   “On what?”

   “You are a curious being. Are all humans like that?”

   “Sorry.” It came out more bitter than he intended to. “I’ll just—”

   “I did not mean for you to leave,” Cas said. “I was merely wondering.” He looked straight at Dean, and his stupidly blue eyes looked so stupidly sincere about it. “You ask a lot of questions.”

   “This whole thing where you guys exist is kinda news to me.”

   “I apologize,” Cas said. “I forget. I conduct research on marine creatures, because we have seen the galaxies, but not the _sobam_ —the waters.”

   “Why’s that?”

   “They are dangerous.”

   “Huh,” Dean said, not knowing what else to ask. _Where are these waters_ , maybe, but he had the feeling Cas wouldn’t tell him if he did ask. So far, Cas had answered pretty much anything Dean asked that didn’t have to do with the specifics of the planet. It probably had something to do with protecting one’s secrets, and considering how badly humanity fucked up… Dean couldn’t blame Cas for not wanting to tell him everything.

   Thing was, Dean wasn’t planning on using the information to the advantage of humanity. He got that Cas couldn’t be sure of that, and if he were in Castiel’s place he probably wouldn’t have trusted himself about it either, but he knew this about himself. He had already crashed into the guy’s home. The plan was never to take over a planet that was inhabited, it was to check out a planet that was supposed to have no sentient life.

   Even if he ever did manage to get back to Earth, he should be able to make up a story about what happened. They had never found anything here. It should be harder to believe for those at home that something did exist here than that it didn’t.

   Either way, he didn’t press. He let Cas do his work while Dean walked around the room checking stuff out from up close now that he finally could. It wasn’t much; it was not that big of a space, considering that Cas used it for practically everything. He ate, slept and worked here. He never friggin’ seemed to _leave_.

   Dean should ask about that later. There had to be more of his kind, right? There was no way there was only one alien on this planet and he just happened to find Dean after the crash, although it would make sense that he was so helpful. Cas had mentioned his ‘kind’ several times, too. And where did he get his food, from anyway?

   He realized he was staring at Cas from the other side of the room and quickly looked away, bringing his attention back to the pots and bowls on the shelves. There was all kinds of different stuff in there, pastes and powders that Dean didn’t recognize and that smelled kinda weird. Deciding he didn’t want to know, he moved on.

   The next shelf was a bookshelf, of all things, although Dean had never seen books like this before except for the one Cas was reading on the table right then. They were electronic things that you could touch and which then projected the page for you, straight into the air or in any angle you wanted. Cas’s book was lying on the table, with the page hovering in a 90 degree angle above it so he could read it without having to lean over the table. It was ridiculous. Dean had never seen anything like it.

   He didn’t dare touch the books himself for fear he might break them.

   There were a few that were different, though. They were much thicker and didn’t look all that technological, and when he touched them he realized they weren’t made of any material he was familiar working with.

   They were made of paper.

   He took one of them off the shelf without thinking about it. It proudly proclaimed the words _The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy_ on the side. He wondered if it was an actual guide that Cas’s people had written, since they actually travelled the galaxy, but a glimpse at the back of the book quickly told him otherwise.

   “My brother thought it would be funny,” Cas said. Dean very nearly threw the book in the air in shock.

   “I swear, you need to wear a fucking bell.”

   “Apologies.” Cas took a step back, too, which was a relief since Dean could almost feel his breath in his neck. “He brought it back when he returned from Earth.”

   “Your brother sounds like a real joker.”

   “He is. Would you like to read it?”

   He might as well, since he didn’t have a whole lot better to do. So he gratefully took the book and retreated once again to the tiny room along the corridor, and tried not to think that the look on Cas’s face when he left was almost disappointed. The guy needed to work. He didn’t have time for a human rummaging through everything in his home.

   He also tried not to think about how the room felt colder and more impersonal the more time he spent there, because that just didn’t make sense, and he was not ready to try to make it to.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I wouldn’t complain about any meal I get, Cas. But no worries, yours are still the best I ever had.”

**Six.**

   “So what’s with the wings?” Dean asked after breakfast the next morning. He learnt the very first day not to talk to Castiel before the guy had ingested some food. Cas wasn’t much of a morning person. “I mean, you live underground here, right?”

   “Yes,” Cas said. Once again, Dean could sense there was a story there, but Cas didn’t want to tell him.

   “So can you fly with them?”

   “My nest is three meters above the ground, Dean.”

   “Right.” Dean’s eyes went to the hammock in the corner, where even from where he was sitting he could see the pile of sheets that were still rumpled from Castiel’s night’s rest. He hadn’t seen Cas actually _in_ it—the guy always went to sleep after Dean had retreated to his room, and he was up before Dean woke up again. Dean guessed it was a personal thing. He wouldn’t like it if Cas came into his room while he was still sleeping in just his boxers, either.

   And that definitely did not lead him to thinking about what the alien actually slept in.

   He also really needed to stop thinking about the guy as an alien.

   It was then that he remembered the very first time he saw Cas—not from up close, but from the mouth of the cave, when he saw a figure crouched down with his wings spread out high above him. That was Cas, and he must have been flying then.

   Dean tried to imagine it. He hadn’t seen the wings spread since that day, but he remembered being almost scared by the sheer size of them, because those things could kill him with a single hit. He tried to imagine Cas in the sky like a huge bird.

   To be entirely honest, he couldn’t do it.

   Not with Cas looking so much like a human. It was impossible for him to imagine a regular guy just flying around like that even though he could see his wings every day.

   “Can I touch them?”

   He blurted it out without his brain ever giving the command to his mouth and immediately felt ashamed of himself. Shit, he just had to make things awkward. That was just not something you asked someone, was it?

   Cas looked like he couldn’t believe it, either. He was staring at Dean with wide eyes that Dean thought looked a little panicked, his wings flaring out a little from where they were tucked against his back.

   “Forget I said that,” Dean said hurriedly. “I didn’t mean—shit, sorry.”

   The guy was still staring at him like that.

   “I should leave,” Dean stammered, still admonishing himself quietly. Crap, what if that was considered incredibly rude among their species? Did he piss Cas off? He didn’t look angry, but you never knew. John Winchester never looked angry either, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t.

   He turned to leave for the room he was starting to call ‘his’ even though there were no signs that it was except the belt with tools still lying around, resigning himself to just reading the stupid book all day, or even having to grab his things and leave, when a soft voice said, “Alright.”

   Dean turned slowly, not sure if he heard that right or just imagined it. “Yeah?”

   “Alright,” Cas repeated, his voice a little stronger now. He still looked a little hesitant while he unfolded his wings. Not entirely—Dean wasn’t sure they could even fit into this room, although the ceiling was pretty high—just the first fold. But he could see them properly now, taking up most of the space in the room, and he walked back to Cas slowly.

   “Fuck, Cas, they’re gorgeous.”

   Cas looked down, red creeping up from his neck, and for one moment, Dean entertained the thought that _he was gorgeous_. Just a moment, though, because that was a disturbing thought he shouldn’t be having about an alien.

   “Are you sure?” he asked Cas when he got close enough that he could touch the black feathers if he stretched out his arm. They shone bluish in the light of the crystal walls, and they looked strong. Dean hadn’t seen that many wings before, let alone from up close, but they always seemed fragile to him somehow.

   Castiel’s wings looked anything but fragile.

   “Yes,” he finally answered, although his wing twitched as he said it. Dean looked at him in concern, but there was no trace of discomfort in Castiel’s expression. Part of him didn’t want to do it unless he was entirely sure, but fuck, this might be his only chance.

   He lightly put a hand on the top of the wing. Cas took in a sharp breath, but didn’t move.

   Dean moved his hand down, over the primary feathers. They were thick and heavier than Dean had been expecting, but he kinda liked it. “Can I…”

   But he had no idea how to ask if he could rake his fingers through the feathers without sounding like a total idiot, so he just went for it. It was a nice feeling, somewhere between soft and smooth, and strong and heavy. The part of the wing still tucked to Cas’s back looked thicker, which made sense, because that was probably where the actual strength needed to come from. Dean knew nothing about wings, but that seemed to make sense.

   “Do all of you have wings?”

   “Yes.”

   “What about the guy who went to Earth? Your brother?”

   Cas sounded a little more tense than usual. “If we concentrate, we can make them disappear. They will still be there, just… not corporeal. It is, however… uncomfortable. I find I prefer the wings. It is more comfortable to have them out like this.”

   “Huh,” Dean said, because he had no idea what else to say.

   Cas folded his wings back up. “Was that sufficient for you?”

   “Yeah,” Dean said, surprised to find his voice sounding slightly breathless, as though he had been holding his breath the whole time. “They’re awesome.”

   “Thank you,” Cas said, a little bashfully.

   “So what’re your plans for today? More research?”

   “No. I thought I would do some chores. You are welcome to help for as long as you deem it wise.” He gestured at Dean’s bandaged knee.

   Dean quietly thought that he’d help out whether his knee started hurting again or not, because he was friggin’ sick of sitting around doing nothing, but he was also pretty sure Cas would notice when that happened and send him to the sofa again. “Just tell me what you want me to do, boss.”

   Apparently, he shouldn’t have said that, because Castiel seemed to enjoy bossing him around. He was sent to clean all surfaces in the room (which, thankfully, weren’t that many) while Cas _communicated with the_ _walls._ Those were honest to god his words—“I need to communicate with the crystals. It will not take long.” Dean tried not to stare at Cas as he knelt on the ground underneath his hammock, wings curled around himself so it was impossible for Dean to see what was going on. All he knew was that the spot where Cas was sitting seemed to glow brighter than the rest of the walls.

   He dusted and wiped off the shelves, table and kitchen counter grudgingly, not because he wasn’t willing to do it, but because he couldn’t help stealing glances at Cas the entire time. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see. Maybe he was just hoping for the wings to let up and show him, although Cas looked kinda awesome like this too, using his own form to create an illusion of privacy.

   Dean just wished he didn’t have to. He felt bad enough for intruding on the guy’s home even though it was Cas who had brought him here. The guy wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about it.

   Cas seemed to be a private guy, anyway. Dean hadn’t been here for very long, but he didn’t have the feeling the other man actually went out a lot. Cas seemed perfectly comfortable staying in his home all this time.

   He didn’t get the time to think more about it, because that was the moment Sam decide to call in, which was always a nerve-racking moment because it might mean something had happened. Dean had the feeling Sam and Jess were keeping an eye on things, but not actively doing anything, and he was happy about that. It gave him time to figure out what he needs to do now without worrying like crazy about them. It meant they were staying as safe as they were going to be for the moment.

   “Gimme a sec,” he said after making sure it was really Sam, moving to the corridor instead. He wasn’t bothered by Castiel’s presence—they didn’t talk about secret stuff, and Cas already knew parts of it to begin with—but he wasn’t sure if his chattering would bother Cas in whatever it actually was he was doing.

   “Alright, Sammy. You guys good?”

   “Yeah,” Sam said. “How are you, Dean?”

   “Busy doing household chores,” he said, grinning.

   “You’re in a cave, Dean.”

   Right, he hadn’t exactly told Sam about the whole thing where he lived with Cas now. He wasn’t _lying_ , not entirely; Cas did live in a kind of cave.

   He had no idea himself why he hadn’t told his brother. Sam would be thrilled to hear all about how people on this planet lived (or one of the people, at least).

   Maybe that was the whole point.

   He trusted Sam, more than anyone in his entire life. He wasn’t afraid Sam would accidentally sell him out by talking about things he wasn’t supposed to know. It wasn’t anything like that. He had no valid reason at all not to tell the kid, except that for some reason, Dean wanted to keep this to himself.

   “Whatever, bitch.”

   “Jerk,” Sam said. “You sound well.”

   “Please don’t get all sappy on me now.”

   He could practically hear Sam rolling his eyes. “Fine, fine, I’ll leave you to whatever it is you were so busy with.”

   “Haven’t found out anything new, then?”

   “I would have told you.”

   “Right.”

   As far as their conversations went, it wasn’t the most exciting one they’d had. It didn’t even last five minutes, but at least it let the other know that they were still alive and nothing bad had happened yet. It was frustrating to the both of them that there usually wasn’t anything else to talk about, but it was a comfort knowing that at least there wasn’t any more bad news, either.

   He returned to the main room, where Cas was waiting for him. “You care for your brother very much.”

   “Um,” Dean said, because that was leaning dangerously towards the topic of feelings. “Yeah.”

   But Cas just nodded and smiled, and beckoned him to follow.

   “What are we doing?”

   “That food you are having here needs to come from somewhere, Dean.”

   It was stupidly exciting to hear Cas say that, because it meant Dean was gonna get to see more of this planet. He had a crazy vision of flying cars that would bring them to a civilization out of humanity’s reach, where the aliens did their shopping, even if he knew that wasn’t what was going to happen.

   It was a good thing that he knew, too, because he would’ve been sorely disappointed.

   Cas led him to the end of the corridor, the only other door that was there and which Dean hadn’t been through yet. Truth be told, he never even went in this direction, which was unlike him. His father used to tell him to always know all the exits to a place. He should’ve remembered.

   He gave himself the excuse that he wouldn’t have been able to walk there, even if he did walk short distances with his crutches before because if Dean was anything, it was stubborn as hell.

   “So what’s out there? Intergalactic supermarkets?”

   Cas didn’t laugh. Dean had noticed that it wasn’t easy to get smiles out of the guy; it was why he liked it so much when it did happen. “I grow my own food,” he said seriously. “It’s much healthier.”

   Huh.

   “So we’re plucking fruit or something?”

   “Or something,” Castiel agreed when he opened the door.

   There was a huge hole in the ceiling of this space, and the sunlight that came through was hurting Dean’s eyes. It wasn’t just that he hadn’t been outside in days—it also reflected off the crystals on the walls, bathing the room in a brighter light than he’d ever seen in his life.

   And in the middle, there was a friggin’ jungle worth of trees and plants.

   Just seeing trees was strange to Dean, considering how few there were left on Earth. He’d heard there were more in the areas that weren’t inhabited, so if someone needed a tree for, say, its wood, it wasn’t only a lot of paperwork to be allowed to use any part of it at all, it was also a lot of paperwork to get a big enough car to get there and get your shit done. The ones close to the tech centres weren’t allowed to be used for anything. They were there to keep the people alive.

   There were plants close to the tech centre, but most of them were grown in greenhouses with lots of artificial help and all their components were sold for insane amounts of credits.

   These, though. This place looked like it was all natural. Natural in the context of this planet, in any case, because Dean had never seen so many colours in one place. Back home, there was always this kind of dusty look over everything. The sky still looked blue, the trees still looked green—but not as brightly as things did here. The blue crystals on the walls. The different coloured trees and plants. “Holy crap.”

   “I assume that means you like it.”

   Dean laughed, still a little shocked at what he was seeing. “Hell yeah I like it.”

   This planet was showing him things he had never expected, and they weren’t even weird things that aliens did or had that humans didn’t. He never thought he’d become this cheesy.

   “Our plants and flowers fare much better underground than above it,” Cas said. “The crystals provide much of what they need, although water must be provided.”

   “So basically what you’re saying is everything is underground because these weird-ass walls are more important than your sun.”

   “Yes,” Cas said with a small smile. “That is what I’m saying. Now, I do not want you bending over with that knee too much, so I will work on the lower situated plans myself. I would like for you to pluck these.” He gestured at trees that were the colour of the sky when the sun set on Earth, only brighter—pink, Dean thought, they were pink. The trees were about Dean’s own height and carried round things that were the same colour, but darker. “We can use them to make something sweet for after dinner tonight.”

   Dean thought he was starting to develop a sweet tooth, because his mouth started watering at that idea. “I can’t believe you have a whole forest in your backyard cave.”

   Cas huffed.

   Joking aside, not only was it the strangest beautiful thing Dean had ever seen, the work was also surprisingly relaxing—and those are two words he’d never expected to use in the same sentence. He loved being a mechanic, but it wasn’t exactly relaxing work, not with what was on the line if he screwed up.

   The worst he could screw up here was to pluck fruits that weren’t ripe enough yet. Cas explained it to him when he got started: only pluck the brightest ones, and when in doubt, smell them. Dean wasn’t planning on doing that, though, if he could help it.

   The work was easy, because the height of the tree was perfect for Dean. Cas was a bit further off, so they didn’t really talk, but for some reason it was a nice feeling to both be there in silence and work.

   His eyes quickly got more used to all the light, which was a good thing because he didn’t have his dark glasses anymore. They were required to have for all the crew on a ship, but Dean never used his because he rarely looked out the viewscreen to begin with. Besides, the viewscreen was made to filter extreme light so nobody accidentally looked into it and screwed up their eyes. The glasses were an extra safety measure that he was pretty sure no one ever used.

   But this wasn’t bright enough for his eyes to get instantly damaged. He hoped Cas wouldn’t take him to a place where that would happen.

   He didn’t even notice he started humming until Cas asked, “What’s that?”

   “Hmm?”

   “That sound.” Cas frowned. “It has stopped.”

   Dean laughed quietly. “Might’ve been me. What, you don’t sing during work?”

   Cas’ frown deepened. “No.”

   “You should try it. It’ll cheer you up.”

   “I am not feeling down, Dean.”

   “Try it anyway.”

   He didn’t actually hear Cas try it after that. The guy probably felt awkward doing that around someone else when he was not used to doing it at all. Dean himself, though—well. He had used this same melody for years. To sing Sammy to sleep, to keep himself from thinking about things, to feel a little better while in prison. He didn’t remember the words to the song, but he remembered the tune. It was what his mother used to sing to him when he was just a little boy.

   It wasn’t just a tune he used only in serious situations, though. It just was.

   They worked there all morning and, after a break for lunch, well into the afternoon. Time went ridiculously fast having something to do again. Dean felt like he got nothing done, and it was true that Cas had filled far more of the square baskets than he had, but the alien didn’t mention it and neither did Dean. He was stupidly tired from the work. A nice kind of tired. The kind that made you fall asleep within minutes.

   Dean didn’t remember the last time he felt this way.

   Cas took some of the recently picked fruits and put them in a new, empty basket. “If you close the baskets, you may leave them near the door,” he told Dean. “We will store them later.”

   Dean was kinda glad he said that, because those baskets weren’t light, either.

   He tried to help Cas with cooking again, but the man just shoo’d him away. “You have been working all day. You need to allow your knee some rest.”

   Usually, Dean would complain. He was fine, he didn’t need babying. But the idea of just sitting down and relaxing a little was just too appealing. “You sure? You’ve done more than I have.”

   “Yes, and I’m used to it. Sit down.”

   “Yes, sir,” Dean said, only a little sarcastically. The corner of Cas’s mouth twitches.

   They didn’t talk much more for the rest of the day. Dean was too exhausted to keep up conversation, and Cas seemed perfectly okay with the silence. He only broke it to wake Dean from his slumber when dinner was ready, which they ate in silence once again, and then Dean decided to actually go to bed early for what might be the first time in his life.

   Sleep came fast that night, and for once Dean wasn’t plagued by nightmares. If instead his dreams involved that little twist of Castiel’s lips, no one had to know.

*

   They didn’t move the baskets the next day. They didn’t really do anything the next day. Dean sat reading the weird book—which was apparently a series—on the sofa, and for once Castiel actually joined him to read a book for his research there. It was the strangest feeling, sitting there next to each other like it was the most normal thing in the universe. Dean kinda liked it.

   “So what we did yesterday,” he asked while eating the food they gathered the day before. “You do that often?”

   “Every few days during the season,” Cas said. “As you noticed, there is quite a lot to do.”

   “What do you even do with all that stuff? Do you just eat it all?”

   Castiel laughed quietly. “I trade it at the market. You may also have noticed that even here, meat does not grow on trees.”

   “That’d make it too healthy for my taste,” Dean joked, although he was pretty sure he’d eat meat wherever it came from. It filled his stomach better than anything. (That was probably just wishful thinking, but Dean thought it was a good excuse to eat the stuff anyway.)

   “I have not heard you complain about healthy meals since you arrived here.”

   Dean snorted. “I wouldn’t complain about any meal I get, Cas. But no worries, yours are still the best I ever had.” That was the thing, really. Dean had been hungry enough times in his life never to say no to any kind of food, and especially not fresh vegetables or meat. He knew what it was like not to have it.

   Shit, Dean fucking hated Earth.

   He liked it here, though, which was just as bad because he still knew nothing about this planet except that it was inhabited, and anything could be underground. And that was gonna be a serious problem if he wanted to get out of here. He remembered his father teaching him that two things were important wherever you were—know your surroundings, and know your enemy. Right now, Dean didn’t know either.

   He wondered if his Dad had known his enemy before he left, or even that he had one. He must have. John was an experienced space traveller. At least experienced enough not to just disappear off the radar.

   Up until recently, Dean had made himself believe that he wasn’t.

   Yeah, maybe he was still fucking bitter about it. All things considered, no one could blame him.

   Dean could feel Cas staring at him and grinned. “You need help cleaning up?”

*

   It took another day for Dean to bring up the baskets with vegetables they filled earlier that week.

   Cas was making lunch, which was pretty much the same every day—it was a bit dough-y, with something crunchy mixed into it. Truth be told, there was very little taste to it, but Dean enjoyed it anyway. It didn’t taste worse than what he was used to, and at least this stuff filled him enough to go on till dinner time, making it infinitely better.

   “What about that stuff we did two days ago?” Dean asked. “Weren’t we supposed to store that later? Where do you usually leave that crap?”

   “The room along the corridor.”

   “Oh.” Dean rubbed his neck awkwardly. “You want me to clear out of there now that you’ve got stuff to stack away again?”

   “You don’t have to.”

   “I dunno, Cas, I kinda feel like I do. I’m intruding here, man.”

   The corners of Cas’s mouth sagged. “I brought you in here myself. I would not have cleared that room for you if it I felt it was the wrong thing to do.”

   “I could sleep on the sofa. I don’t mind. I’m used to uncomfortable shit.”

   That just made Cas look unhappier. “I said no, Dean. I will be going to the market to trade soon. Much of it will be gone then.”

   Dean realized that him sleeping on the sofa would only mean he’d be intruding on Cas _more_ , considering he slept in that room too. Crap. He should probably just move outta here soon. Maybe he could ask Cas to bring him back to the wreckage of the ship. There had to be something useful there that he hadn’t thought of that could help him get somewhere, and it offered plenty cover at night.

   He didn’t exactly want to go back there and stay there. He didn’t feel like staying in a place with so many bad memories, but he didn’t have much of a choice, did he? His leg had almost entirely healed by now, thanks to Cas’s great medicine—just something else Dean owed him for, especially if it was as hard to come by as Cas said it was. Dean had just been leeching off him. Fuck.

   “Dean,” Cas said again. “Are you alright?”

   “Fine,” Dean said absently.

   It was pretty obvious Cas didn’t believe him, but Dean didn’t worry about it. There was nothing he could do to pay the guy back but get out of his hair soon, so that was what he should do. He’d figure out a way.

   Their break lasted a while, but afterwards Cas put Dean to work on a patch of vegetables that grew on some kind of bushes and told him to call the alien when it got to be too much for his knee. It was a bit tougher because they were closer to the ground and Cas didn’t own anything that Dean could comfortably sit on which would also be easy to keep moving around, so he just did the work crouching down and hoped his knee wasn’t going to complain. (It did, but it wasn’t so bad that Dean couldn’t handle it, so he ignored it.)

   By the end of the day, the entire area surrounding the kitchen was stacked with baskets. Luckily, they were square and had a lid, so they could all put them neatly on top of the other without everything falling over, but Dean didn’t like the sight of it. “Cas…”

   “You do not have to sleep on the sofa, Dean.”

   “You cleared out your whole friggin’ storage room for me.”

   “It was nearly empty.”

   “I don’t care!” Dean snapped. “You don’t get it, do you? I’m the intruder here. On your planet, in your goddamn home. And you just heal me, and get me food, and clear out a room for me that you end up needing, and you just don’t ask for anything in return!”

   Cas narrowed his eyes. Dean closed his.

   “Is that it?” Cas asked. “You are afraid that I will ask for something you cannot give?”

   “Isn’t that what they all do?” There was a foul taste in his mouth. Dean never had anyone do anything for him without expecting something in return. Sam tried, but Dean practically raised Sam, so that didn’t count. John always wanted Dean to do exactly as he asked. In prison, he had to work to get the foulest food there was to find, just enough quality and quantity to survive on, but not enough to ever make him feel sated. And then in between, anyone who saw him and felt sorry for the kid who’d lost both his parents and looked starving, with a little brother to feed—they never felt sorry enough to just give him anything, did they?

   Bobby had been the only one kind enough to take them in without asking for anything in return, so at least they had a roof above their heads even though Bobby’s credits weren’t enough to feed three people every day, let alone two growing boys. Dean owed Bobby a lot, and he’d never had the chance to pay him back for any of it either.

   Dean hated it. He hated being in anyone’s debt, even if these people didn’t consider it to be that.

   “I promise you I will not ask you for any more than you can give.”

   And that just made it worse, because Dean had heard that one before. The words made his stomach turn and he had to swallow the bile that was rising in his throat. No. He finally opens his eyes and looked straight at Cas. “No.”

   “No?” Cas asked, sounding genuinely confused.

   “I won’t.”

   The alien just looked more confused and for a moment Dean entertained the thought that he really had no idea, but it didn’t matter. Not with these memories fighting to come up and winning. “No,” he repeated, turning away and leaving the room with long strides and his heart somewhere in his throat.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas chuckled. “My kind is stronger than yours, Dean. I did fly you to the cave and then here.”
> 
> Dean stared at him. “Are you suggesting I’m heavy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (chapter warning for past non-con; you can skip the first paragraph up to the first * )

**Seven.**

   _“I’m not asking for anything you can’t give.”_

   Dean could still hear the words clearly, even though it had happened about a decade ago. He could still see the face of the man who had said them, like it happened yesterday. Sammy was only a kid at the time, skinnier than he was supposed to be. Looking back, Dean was pretty sure he himself might have been on the verge of starving, trying to keep his little brother alive. Bobby already took less for himself than he needed, and Dean had tried convincing the man that he could make it with the little jobs he took on that he was allowed to do now that he’d turned sixteen.

   Sixteen was the age you either went to school for a few more years to specialize yourself in a tech job, or—if you were poor and dumb like Dean—started working low-paying jobs and hoped for the best. Problem was, there weren’t too many jobs for him to start on. He still tried, but all he got were those one-time jobs that earned him enough credits to eat for a day or two, but that were completely fucking useless in the long run.

   One of Dean’s employers knew that, too.

   Dean tried not to think about it too much. He’d gotten pretty good at it. He was pretty sure Sam had no idea, and he liked to keep it that way. Hopefully Bobby didn’t either—he spread out the credits well enough that he thought it looked like he was still working odd jobs. Bobby tended to know things, though.

   It didn’t matter now. It kept them alive for long enough to get Dean a lowly job at a mechanical centre, and they realized his potential there soon enough. He climbed the ladder. Earned enough to keep two growing kids alive. The incident never repeated itself. The one time they were short on food again because Sam had ended up at the healer’s office and healers are fucking expensive, Dean decided to take the riskier route and steal their food instead.

   That didn’t turn out such a great idea either, but at least he never had to hear those words again.

   _Cas didn’t mean them that way._ He knew that much was true. He knew he was fucking overreacting over something that happened at least ten fucking years ago. Jesus.

   “Dean?”

   He was up faster than he thought physically possible, his spare clothes bundled up in in a way he could easily carry them. He should’ve gotten outta here a while ago, anyway—at the very least yesterday when Cas told him he could put pressure on his leg again. There was serious shit going on back at home and he’d been wasting, what, weeks? Just sitting around with the excuse that his knee hurt.

   He survived this whole shit. He was the only one who knew, and he was too lazy to do anything about it. He was a fucking asshole.

   Cas was in the door opening, frowning. “Dean, what is going on?”

   “I should go.”

   “I said something wrong,” Cas stated. “Please allow me to make it up to you.”

   “Shit’s going on back on Earth, Cas. Someone didn’t want us to arrive at our destination even when it looks like Earth’s gonna be wiped out in less than a few decades. I can’t sit here and do nothing.”

   “I understand,” Cas said. “I can help.”

   Dean hardly heard him. “I gotta go.”

   “No,” Cas said, his wings flaring out to that halfway point the way they had earlier that day. He looked fucking scary this time, though—imposing.

   Dean backed away, the words floating through his head again. _Cas doesn’t mean it that way. Cas doesn’t mean it that way…_ But what if he _did_? Dean couldn’t do anything against a guy with huge, probably insanely strong wings, especially not backed up in a small room like this. It was like he was a teenager all over again—different than that first time, but similar all the same. _“I’m not_ asking _, Dean.”_

   His distress must have been showing on his face, because Cas folded his wings back up and seemed to shrink down on himself when he did so. “I apologize,” he said quietly, almost embarrassed. “I should have known better.”

   That didn’t really ease Dean’s heart that was trying to physically beat itself out of its ribcage.

   “Dean.” Castiel sounded concerned now. “I am sorry. I would not hurt you in any way.”

   “Yeah,” Dean said, unconvincingly. “I know.” Shit, he couldn’t believe he couldn’t handle this. He should be able to handle this. He was a goddamn full-grown man.

   Cas stepped closer, but when he saw Dean’s face, he kept close to the walls and sat down in a corner instead. It left the door open for Dean to pass through, and that alone was a relief.

   “It is dangerous for you to be outside alone,” Cas explained quietly. “My kin do not always take kindly to others. They know the state of your planet. They might be afraid you are here to take over ours.”

   “I’m not,” Dean said, calming a little now that Cas didn’t look so threatening.

   “I know. I believe you.” He was looking at Dean with huge eyes, and there was something in them that made Dean believe him, too.

   “Okay.”

   “I think I understand your need to go back,” Cas admitted. “You have loved ones back at home.” It wasn’t a question. He heard Dean talk to Sam over the communicator; he knew that Dean at least had him and Jess to worry about.

   There was a long silence before Cas spoke again. “I do not know what I said that upset you, but I truly am sorry. I would never deliberately hurt you. Perhaps you don’t fully trust me, and you don’t have to. But I hope you believe at least that.”

   “Yeah,” Dean agreed, the muscles in his shoulders relaxing now. “I can do that.”

   Cas smiles. It was a timid smile, one that made his face look soft and that made Dean wonder how he could think this guy would hurt him the way he was hurt before.

   He needed someone to trust out here, and he truly wanted to believe he could trust Cas. And this—this wasn’t something he’d freaked out about in years. It was stupid to suddenly do so now. He’d been going in at the deep end ever since he got here—might as well dive a little further now.

*

   Somehow, things felt easier after that. Lighter. Dean had thought things were easy before, but there was always some kind of tension between them. A lingering kind of distrust, even though Cas patched him up so well. And Cas wasn’t entirely open with him, either.

   That wasn’t entirely gone yet. Dean could feel Castiel’s reluctance to talk about certain things still, but he was cool with that. If he said something and Dean did break his trust, he would fuck over his entire planet. Dean… well, his planet was fucked anyway, and these guys already knew how to reach it if they wanted to. And it wasn’t like Earth had any trade secrets, especially not compared to this planet with the way they left humanity to believe there was nothing here.

   “Hey, Cas? What’s this planet called, anyway?”

   “We call her Xa’ar,” Cas said.

   “Does it mean anything?”

   “No. But she stands for many good things. Like your old term ‘Mother Nature’.”

   Dean had never heard the term Mother Nature, but he didn’t say that out loud. He could imagine what it was supposed to mean even if he hadn’t really seen it himself.

   Cas was sitting at the table reading again, but not for his research paper this time. It was a book about space travel, one of those fancy ones that Dean hadn’t dared touch. In the meantime, Dean was asked to write things down or clear stuff up, because whether he would like to do research of his own or not, the books were all in Enochian. Not only did that language sound like garbling to Dean’s ears, it also apparently had a whole different alphabet that he couldn’t read.

   It made him feel useless, but there was nothing either of them can do about that unless Dean managed to learn the whole Enochian language within the next few hours, and that wasn’t gonna happen.

   So far, he hadn’t written down a lot. Cas kept quietly muttering in Enochian while he read, but he’d only said something in English once and it was something useless that Dean, as a mechanic, already knew. Dean thought at this point the other man was mostly doing research to educate himself on space travel more, because he admitted to Dean that even with their technology, he hadn’t been to another planet in decades.

   “Decades, huh?” Dean asked. “So how old are you?”

   Cas didn’t answer that clearly, just said something vague that came down to “very old.” Dean should’ve realized this sooner, if his brother had gone to Earth during the Tech Age, which was several decades ago—on Earth, anyway. Time did seem to go faster there than it did here, but Cas didn’t _look_ older than a few decades to begin with.

   He was trying to keep quiet, he really was. Cas promised him he’d explain a bit more about Xa’ar later, because that was more like the information Dean was after to get through this whole ordeal safely. That was the deal: Cas read up on space travel and asked Dean questions sometimes, then Dean could ask Cas questions in turn.

   It was just taking longer than Dean had been expecting, and he wasn’t exactly a patient guy.

   “What would happen if I ran into some of your kind that don’t like me?” he finally asked, because that had been bothering him ever since Cas said his kin weren’t too friendly to outsiders.

   Cas hummed. “I cannot be sure. We have never caught a human on our planet.”

   “You make it sound like I’m a trapped fly. I’m insulted, Cas.”

   Cas smiled and looked up at him. “You don’t have to be. I like you quite better than I would a fly.”

   “Gee, thanks, I appreciate it.”

   “They might trap you like one, though. You must stay away from Uriel, or Zachariah.”

   Dean had no clue who Uriel and Zachariah are or what they even looked like, but he made note of that anyway. It might come in handy someday. He hoped it wouldn’t.

   “Why do they care so much, anyway?”

   “Because they know what you humans have done to your own planet, Dean.”

   Right. It wasn’t exactly his fault that his ancestors didn’t think of anyone but themselves, though. “Will these two be roaming around the planet like you were?”

   “I wasn’t roaming around. I heard a crash and went to investigate.” Cas closed his book and sighed. “It was quite audible, you know. I thought I might get there before anyone else did. And you were lucky that no one had come up to find you yet.”

   Dean swallowed. He imagined being found, passed out next to a fresh grave and the wreck of a clearly human-made spaceship, by someone who was decidedly unhappy to find him there. “Thanks again for that.”

   “I’m glad I found you,” Cas said sincerely. “I enjoy speaking to you.”

   “Dude, you freakin’ learned English for me,” Dean said, still in awe. “In the span of a few days.”

   “Most languages in the galaxy are easy for us to learn. Most of them can be traced back to Enochian somehow.”

   “You’re serious,” Dean stated when Cas didn’t laugh.

   “Yes.”

   Dean almost asked Cas how that worked—were they the first ones to invent space travel? Did they all descent from these guys? Had humans been wrong about evolution or creation all along?

   He was scared to know the answer, though, because that would mean they’d been roaming the galaxy for thousands of years. The thought of them being so advanced made him a little sick to his stomach. These were the guys he was going to try to elude. He’d like to think he at least stood a chance.

   He ran a hand over his face, afraid to ask what he was going to ask next. “Didn’t you have to go to the market soon?”

   Cas squinted at him suspiciously. “Tomorrow, yes. Why?”

   “Take me with you.”

   He was dead serious about it, too. If he wanted to learn about this planet, then he needed to see things for himself. Things that weren’t the big plane of nothing that he’d seen so far, anyway.

   “No.” Cas got up quickly, shoving his chair aside angrily as he did so.

   “Why not?”

   “What do you not understand about ‘it is dangerous’?” Cas growled.

   “I’ll be with you, won’t I?”

   “Yes, and that does not guarantee anything. I cannot hide you there. I cannot make them believe you are anything but an alien, and I cannot keep them from doing things they might deem right when they see you.”

   Dean pursed his lips. “Alright, fine. I thought—” He sighed. “I’ve been cooped up in caves for weeks here. Don’t you feel the need to just go outside sometimes?”

   Judging by the look on Cas’s face, Dean guessed the answer to that was no.

   “I would let you if I thought it was safe,” Cas said, pursing his lips. “But it is not, and it will not teach you anything that I cannot tell you.”

   “Alright, alright. I get it.”

   “No, you do not.” Cas frowned deeply again. Dean noticed he did that a lot, whether he was confused, angry, frustrated, or just thinking. He wanted to joke it would give him wrinkles, but this wasn’t the right time. “But I might have an idea.”

*

   Planning the idea took up the rest of their morning, and though it wasn’t what Dean hoped he could see from the planet, he knew that this was the best he was gonna get. He could insist Cas take him to the marketplace, but Dean was no use to anyone if he got captured by angry aliens with huge wings. Or dead. Who knew what might happen to him.

   To think that he was starting to like it here.

   After they finished talking it through and had some lunch, Dean helped Cas in what he’d dubbed the jungle room again. The baskets were still stacked close to the door, and they added a fair few to it in the few hours to work so that Cas had as much as possible to trade for other things like meat and clothes.

   “How are you gonna get all of that to the market on your own?” Dean asked him while they dragged over half of the baskets to the main room. Cas didn’t verbally answer, but he showed Dean. All of the baskets got wrapped in something that looked incredibly fragile to Dean, like a thin cloth, but apparently it was  stronger than it looked if that was supposed to hold all of the baskets. “Isn’t that heavy as hell?”

   Cas chuckled. “My kind is stronger than yours, Dean. I did fly you to the cave and then here.”

   Dean stared at him. “Are you suggesting I’m _heavy_?”

   The other man’s eyes crinkled and his smirk turned smug when Dean’s expression turned mock insulted. He knew he wasn’t actually a heavy-weight—no one was. Anyone who managed to be anything but skinny must be a rich asshole, with how little food there was and how high the prices were to get it.

   “You’re an ass, you know that?”

   Cas’ face broke out in a full grin, and Dean thought that was worth getting insulted for any day.

*

   Cas strapped the net around his body to divide the weight of the baskets evenly. It looked ridiculous, such a relatively short guy with such a huge net dragging behind him, and Dean had to remind himself Cas was gonna spread out his wings in a minute and he wasn’t not gonna look so small when he did.

   Dean was going to have to be carried in Cas’s arms, which was something he was never going to admit out loud to anyone after the fact. He wasn’t sure how that was gonna go, but he hoped to god it wasn’t gonna be bridal style.

   The entrance to Castiel’s home, apparently, was behind one of his shelves. “It ensures I will hear it when someone enters without notice,” he explained, even though there was another narrow corridor behind it that ended it an opening covered by another door that Dean, if he looked back once outside, didn’t notice at all even though he knew that it was there. It seemed like a miracle to him that Cas could even find his own home, but he probably had a system worked out. Dean should ask about it when they got back.

   “Are you ready?” Cas asked.

   “Yeah, I guess.” He wasn’t. Shit, he was so glad Cas told him it wouldn’t be far, because he was already nervous about how it was going to look with him in a freaking flying alien’s arms. He could see John Winchester’s disapproving looks without even having to close his eyes. It didn’t help to think of Sam instead, either, because that just resulted in thinking of his brother probably laughing his ass off if he ever heard about this.

   No one would ever hear about this. Not a living soul.

   Cas held him under his armpits, which wasn’t exactly comfortable, but at least it didn’t feel less humiliating than having to be carried bridal style. Dean forgot that discomfort right the moment Cas folded out his wings and ascended into the air, anyway, because he’d forgotten one little detail.

   _He didn’t like heights._

   Maybe he could close his eyes the whole time and it would be over soon. Just don’t look down. The worst thing to do in such a situation was to—

   He looked down.

   He didn’t see anything he hadn’t seen here before, meaning mostly rock. Except, like he remembered from that first time he looked outside the cave, some of it seemed to be moving.

   “Err, Cas?”

   “Yes, Dean.”

   “What’s that?” Dean said nervously, not daring to point in case the movements would make Cas’s grip on him slip.

   “You mean the Zarcaraptors,” Cas said. “They are the reason we fly. Outside our cities, it would be dangerous to walk around. You have been lucky, when you walked out that cave, that you did not encounter any before I found you.”

   “You crushed one. Before—before we met.”

   The alien hummed. “Yes.”

   “Why?” _Why save me at all?_

   “You were a curiosity. I wanted to learn about you. You are a very interesting creature, Dean.”

   “Thanks, I guess.”

   He had to stop looking down, though—not because of whatever those Zarcaraptors were, but because it showed him how fast they were going. If Cas dropped him for whatever reason… At this height and speed, he’d be dead on impact, no vile creatures necessary.

   He swallowed painfully and closed his eyes. Cas wasn’t going to drop him.

   Dean wasn’t sure how long the journey actually took, but it felt like an eternity. He felt like he was gonna throw up all over the place and some rogue alien would be able to follow the trail all the way to their destination. God, that was disgusting.

   Finally, they were slowing down. Dean didn’t open his eyes before he could feel his feet gently hit the ground, so he still stumbled a little, but he was happy enough to have solid ground beneath his feet again.

   Cas looked like it wasn’t too pleasant a flight for him, either, which was imaginable with the added weight of the baskets _and_ Dean. He mentioned that could happen before they left, even if he was a good deal stronger than Dean. It had to do with the effort of flying with that kind of weight, not the weight itself, he said. Dean was just going to take his word on that.

   “From here we walk,” Cas said, even though they’d gone over this at least three times yesterday. If they got too close to civilization by air, there was no doubt they’d be noticed. Cas never flew all the way, but he did go a good deal further when he was alone so he could load the baskets onto a cart instead. Dean just hoped dragging the net behind him wouldn’t damage more of the fruits than absolutely necessary. He wouldn’t like to have that on his hands on top of all the other burdens he put on Cas so far.

   Dean tried looking around to where they were supposed to be going, but he found nothing. It looked exactly the same as everywhere else he’d seen so far, and it frightened him a little. If he ended up being alone out here again, he’d never be able to find anything back. There were no landmarks to navigate by. He had no idea what he was looking for, and he had no idea how Cas knew how to find it.

   “Don’t worry,” Cas said softly. “I will not leave you here.”

   The way he always seemed to know what Dean was thinking was freaking Dean out.

   The walk was pretty far, which Cas had also warned him about. After all, something that came from the air was easy to spot from a good distance away. It did put them at risk of running into one of those raptor creatures, but Cas assured him that it wasn’t likely at this time of the day—not too reassuring considering they just saw one.

   Dean was just starting to feel like they were going absolutely nowhere when Cas said, “Now look.”

   “At what?”

   “You’re not looking right,” Cas said. “It’s right in front of you.”

   Dean was just about to tell him to stop playing games with him when he saw it. There was something wrong with what he was seeing, like the air was rippling. That didn’t make sense though, did it?

   He took a hesitant step forward. Cas didn’t stop him. “What is that?”

   “That,” Cas said, “is our civilization.” His tone was about as bitter as Dean’s was when he talked about Earth.

   But Dean could see it, now. It was all slowly starting to form itself through the ripple in the air. There were buildings, and they were nothing like the stone buildings back on Earth. These were made of something that reflected the bluish light of the sun so brightly that Dean had to cover his eyes with his hand. Where almost everything on Earth had only a single floor, these buildings were towering over him, so high Dean wondered how they stayed standing. There were smaller buildings, too, in front of the higher ones that seemed to make up the centre. It was all silver and blue and bright, and Dean wasn’t sure if he hated it or thought it was amazing.

   “What the hell,” he said, because there honestly wasn’t anything else to say when a whole city had just appeared before his eyes.

   “My brother told me Earth’s architecture had caught up to something similar to this when he was there,” Cas said. “I assume not much of it is left.”

   “Nothing,” Dean said. “So this is how they lived in the Tech Age, huh?”

   “Just the sight of the buildings,” Cas said. “Ours are more durable. They are built with different materials. And they have to be comfortable for our wings. These have been standing for a long time, and will probably outlive us all. Come.” He led Dean off to the left, around the city right in front of him.

   They left early, so as few people would be around as possible. It was a good thing, too. Dean suddenly felt nervous about running into anyone. Crap, at this point, he was almost glad Cas told him no about the market. He wasn’t generally scared of things, but the thought of being amongst dozens of people far stronger than him who may want him dead suddenly made him want to throw up now that it was so close to an actual possibility.

   They stopped at a house that was so brightly coloured it hurt Dean’s eyes. It looked small compared to the huge buildings he could see from the corner of his eye, but it was still big compared to what Dean was used to. “He lives _here_?”

   “He lives here,” Cas agreed, ringing the bell.

   It didn’t take long for the door to open for them. The person who opened it looked completely different from what Dean had been expecting. He was short, for one, with brown hair and golden eyes, and there was an aura of mischief around him. “If it isn’t our resident hermit!” he exclaimed, smirking at Cas. “Did you bring all your stuff here like that? Cassie, when are you going to get yourself—”

   “You know full well how I feel about getting a ship just to transport the baskets a few times a year, Gabriel.”

   “Alright, forget I said anything.”

   Gabriel didn’t shoot one look at Dean, let alone acknowledge him with words. Dean wasn’t sure how to feel about that until Gabriel stepped back to let them in and closed the door behind them. “And you must be Dean-o.”

   “Dean,” he repliesd a little sourly.

   “Cassie, don’t tell me his sense of humour is worse than yours.”

   Cas didn’t tell him anything. He rolled his eyes and went ahead into the living room.

   It was all completely different from Castiel’s place. In fact, Gabriel’s house looked like—well, a _house_. There was a living room and a somewhat separate kitchen, and it was all filled with technology and furniture rather than the few pieces that made up the interior of Castiel’s cave. The living room included a collection of ugly sofas that didn’t seem to fit together at all.

   “You like it? I modelled it after your people’s taste,” Gabriel said happily. “Of course, I hear you might not have many sofas left.”

   Dean wanted to punch him. The only reason he didn’t was because, according to Cas, this guy might be their best ally. He was well-travelled, and he might be the only one who could and was willing to get Dean away from here, no questions asked.

   Gabriel gestured for them to sit down, which they did, while he himself went to get them something to drink. It all had a strange vibe to it. Nothing here was like Cas’s home, and Dean decided he liked the latter much better.

   “I don’t like this,” he muttered to Cas.

   “I know. But we discussed this.”

   He was well aware of that. Cas wouldn’t mind housing him for a little longer, but Dean needed to come up with a plan soon. He didn’t have time to hang around here and become all domestic with a friggin’ alien, especially not on a planet where everybody else might hate him. He had Sam and Jess and Bobby to think about back on Earth.

   Gabriel returned with drinks for all of them and something that looked like sweet snacks which he told them they could just take if they felt like it. “Now,” he said, settling down himself. “Tell me the whole story.”

   It was Cas who started, talking about how he heard a crash and how he decided to check it out and found Dean, and helped him heal. But it fell on Dean to explain the heavy parts, the ones he didn’t like to talk about and the ones he didn’t want anyone to know. It fell on him to tell the alien that he was betrayed by his own kind, which made him nervous as hell because it wasn’t making humanity look any better.

   “So you got sent out and some of your own sabotaged you,” Gabriel said nonchalantly. “Let me guess, you were supposed to find new resources for that failing planet of yours.”

   “Look, man, I know how that sounds, but I’m not here because of some great plan to steal whatever resources you have here. I never should’ve ended up here in the first place, alright? We were heading for Atala.” He held up his hands in both a gesture of openness and frustration. “You think I like crash landing on your stupid planet and losing all the friends I had out here? You really think I give a shit about resources if I had to see my surrogate sister die for it?”

   The short guy was staring at him now, candy forgotten between his lips. But Dean wasn’t done yet, he’d been pushing all of this to the back of his head for far too long. “I thought I was gonna die on a wasteland, and I would’ve been _okay_ with that.”

   Cas made a choking noise behind Dean, but when Dean turned around to look at him, the guy looked as stoic as ever.

   “You guys aren’t supposed to exist, anyway,” Dean finally said when the silence started stretching awkwardly. “Our robots found nothing—”

   “That’s because your technology is fucking medieval,” Gabriel stated lightly, although his expression suggested he felt far from it.

   Dean was quickly starting to really dislike this guy. “Yeah? How about you shut the fuck up?”

   “Dean,” Cas said quietly. “It’s alright—”

   “Why did you leave?” Dean asked, although he was pretty sure he already knew the answer. “You lived on Earth for a while, from what I heard. Any reason you decided to pack your stuff and go back?”

   “Apparently there was a reason it took you humans so long to invent things. You couldn’t even handle a bit of technological advancement. Y’know, it was fun watching it rise, not so much watching you go down with it.”

   “So you just left.” It was an accusation, which was ridiculous. Dean pretended he didn’t notice it himself. It helped when suddenly Cas’ hand was on his shoulder, grounding him.

   From what he knew, it all went pretty fast. Technology got better, faster, more advanced, _more_. And it seemed great at the beginning. All good fun, playing games, keeping up social contacts. It made life easier. Work, in particular: tasks could be done faster and more accurate, people who did heavy work got relieved of the worst of it, things like that. It was great in theory. Dean could see that.

   But it didn’t end there. Losing your job to technology became the norm rather than an exception. The majority of people ended up unemployed. Economies imploded. The wealth of the richest exploded. Generally, people were poor and unhappy; it didn’t take a genius to figure out that wouldn’t end well.

   It didn’t.

   Dean wasn’t sure exactly how it happened. He usually zonked out at the politics part of his history classes, even though Sam would whine about how important it was to learn from your mistakes. As if they could even repeat those mistakes if they wanted to. The Great War—the so-called ‘Third World War’, and wasn’t that a goddamn joke, _three_ world wars—wiped out too much of Earth’s population and resources alike. There had been a few decades of extreme rationing after that, but even before the war resources had been dwindling, so it was just a race against time. Similarly, climate change had been a thing even before they shot tons more chemicals into the air. Humans had fucked up long before; the war just sped up the process.

   Things had been rebuilt since. Earth wasn’t entirely in ruins. Humans were creative, if nothing else, so they learned how to artificially grow food with the limited technology and resources they had left, and how to make any kind of water drinkable. And they managed, enough to start working on that damn technology again.

   This time, though, it had limitations and warning signs. People should be wary of technology, because look where it had gotten them. Any invention had to go through the system first. What is it? What does it do? What is it going to be used for and by whom? How many resources are you planning to use on it, and which? What are your exact plans for the building process—blueprints, calculations?

   Dean knew that last bit only because Sam was a huge nerd. Kid said it was to ensure they didn’t rush through their limited resources, and to ensure they didn’t go too far again. Dean now wondered if maybe there was more to it. Someone got the resources together to build that heat chip and plant it on their ship, _and_ build an actual bomb, after all; not exactly the kind of constructive technology he’d OK if it were up to him.

   He didn’t say any of this out loud.

   “So I just left,” Gabriel agreed. “I was there to drop off the radar here for a while, not to be a hero.”

   “Great,” said Dean, because there really wasn’t anything he could say to that.

   “Isn’t it?”

   They stared each other down until Cas finally softly said, “Gabriel.”

   “You’re lucky Cas likes you,” Gabriel told Dean.

   “I could say the same to you.”

   Cas squeezed his shoulder before he let go again. Dean tried not to think about how he missed the weight right away, because that wasn’t something he needed right then.

   Gabriel heaved a heavy sigh. “You’ve got spirit, Dean. I appreciate that. That, and you got my little bro to like you, so I’m gonna give you a chance.”

   Dean raised his eyebrows. “Gee, thanks.”

   “I don’t owe you anything, bucko.”

   He did have a point there. Except that he’d lived comfortably on Earth when he could, and then started packing the moment things started going bad—but Dean, for once, knew to shut his mouth at the right moment. “Right.”

   “Question is, do you guys have a plan yet?”

   “I want to know more about this planet,” Dean said, even if that wasn’t any kind of plan. “Before we get to any kind of plan, I need to know what I’m dealing with here.”

   “And you think we will provide you with information you could potentially use against us.”

   Dean grit his teeth. He was getting real tired of that bullshit, no matter if he understood where they were coming from. Was it really that hard to believe he didn’t crash and kill four people just to get here?

   “Get me to Atala,” he said instead of answering. He could see Cas turn to stare at him from the corner of his eyes, like this came as a legitimate shock to him. He thought Cas knew that this was a thought Dean had been playing with since the very beginning, he heard Dean talking to Sam about it, but the guy must’ve thought he wasn’t serious about it.

   “You’re insane,” Gabriel told him.

   “Why? What’s out there?”

   “Dean,” Cas said quietly, “are you truly serious about this?”

   “I told you this, Cas. That’s the place I was supposed to go to in the first place. Yeah, I’m dead serious. Someone wanted us to not arrive there. That means it’s survivable for humans, right? Or they could’ve just left us to rot there. There’s something there that someone doesn’t want me to find, and I gotta figure out what it is. So tell me, why am I insane to want to go there? What’s out there that our technology couldn’t find?”

   Cas and Gabriel shared a look that didn’t promise much good. “It’s dangerous,” Cas said, as if not literally every planet was.

   “So is everywhere else for me right now.”

   “Go back to Earth,” Gabriel said. “I’ll get you there. Try to stay alive there for another few years. I’m not having anything to do with this one.”

   “Awesome,” Dean said. “Then I can go now. You still need to go to that market, Cas?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Cas, I know you think it’s a bad idea, but I’m gonna get to Atala if it’s the last thing I do.”

**Eight.**

   Cas still outright refused to take Dean with him, though Dean wasn’t really expecting otherwise. But he was still not planning on sitting around in that dick’s house until Cas got back, and Cas couldn’t make the journey home and back to the city again just for Dean, not if he wanted to get all his stuff done today. It would take him too long with having to do part of it on foot.

   Dean was cool with that. It meant he could do what he did best.

   Sneaking around.

   He stole a cape from Gabriel’s house that was huge on him because there was a lot of extra space in the back where the cape was supposed to drape over huge reddish brown wings that Dean didn’t have. It was kinda nice. It gave him the feeling that he could drown in this world the same way he drowned in the cape—that it could take him and make him part of it, unnoticeable.

   It wasn’t true, and he knew it, but Dean hadn’t survived all these years without any skills. That time he got caught stealing food, he’d been too careless. He should’ve known better then, and he knew better now.

   He was terrified of what he was about to do. Castiel’s warnings kept playing in his head like a recording. If he ran into anyone, he might encounter beings that would want to kill him. But he couldn’t just take Cas’ word for everything. He needed to see things for himself.

   There were paths that led into the city, which seemed strange for a people who could fly anywhere. Dean didn’t question it. He figured he’d find out once he got to more populated areas.

   The city felt enormous. Dean knew there used to be cities just like this one on Earth, but they all crumbled until none of them existed anymore. Not the way they used to. This, though, looked invincible from where he was standing. He suddenly felt infinitely small, smaller even than that time when John explained to him about the stars, because the galaxy seemed so far off but this was _right here_. These buildings had to be dozens of stories high. Dean felt dizzy just thinking about it. There was a strange quality about them, too. Like the walls of Castiel’s cave, some kind of glow seemed to emanate from them that Dean didn’t think was just the light of the sun being reflected. He wondered if they were made from the same stuff. And what that was.

   As he expected, it was both easier and harder to hide here than it was back at home. There was just so much of everything here—dark corners, tiny hiding spaces, but also people. With wings.

   Despite having seen them on Cas almost every day for a few weeks now, Dean just couldn’t get used to it. These guys all looked like humans, but they weren’t, and he was shockingly reminded of that. He’d gotten so used to Cas’s wings that they didn’t seem odd to him at all anymore. He needed to remember that they should.

   There were a lot of them, too. More than Dean had expected when he made the rash decision to do this. If he’d thought it through, he would probably still be at Gabriel’s; he was nervous about just being close mere hours ago. Problem was, Dean wasn’t exactly known for thinking things through. He realized this once again when he tried to stay close to walls that didn’t feel like anything he knew, smooth and cold even in the bright sun. The paths were in stark contrast to the buildings, cobbled and frustrating to walk on, like they weren’t as important.

   Dean guessed they weren’t. There were friggin’ outside doors on every floor of the buildings for a reason, too, and Dean wasn’t making sure he had cover above him for nothing. It wasn’t that the aliens didn’t walk—but they did seem to stay on the main streets, which must be constructed a lot better. From there, they just elevated themselves up to wherever they had to be.

   This was a bad idea. This was a terrible idea. How could he have forgotten that they actually did fly, when that was exactly how Cas got them here? It was so much more difficult to hide this way. And there were so many of them by now, probably in the middle of the morning rush.

   But despite that there were quite a lot of people, it didn’t seem very chaotic. The longer Dean observed, the more he believed there to be some sort of hierarchy. Everybody seemed to know their place. It was more unnerving than a total chaos would’ve been.

   He wondered if any of these guys were Uriel or Zachariah, the ones Cas had mentioned. There were a few that he thought might be, the way they looked at everyone like they were _up there_ and everybody else had to clear the way for them, but that might just be the way of these people. Cas never seemed at that stuck up, but there were always exceptions. Dean wasn’t sure whether Cas was the exception, or these guys, but he could hazard a guess.

   It looked like there were just gonna be pedestrians, no carts like Cas said he used to get his baskets to the market, or even ships like Gabriel mentioned. Dean guessed the latter were probably only used to get from place to place, like cars. From what he’d seen from his hiding places, a ship wouldn’t exactly be easy to navigate through these streets.

   All in all, it looked like a pretty regular city. There had to be stores around here somewhere, but Dean didn’t dare move too much toward the centre, just in case. This rush should be over soon, too, if they all worked full days the way Dean hoped they did. Like humans.

   Some of them sure looked like it. They were dressed up much nicer than Cas usually was in just his tunic (at least, that was what Dean had silently started calling it). They were actually wearing pants, and some kind of capes just like the one Dean was wearing but with holes in the back from which their wings protruded. Part of him thought they looked kinda creepy that way, but he guessed one had to take the best option they got when there were wings sprouting from their back. Not exactly the easiest form to design clothes for.

   His muscles were starting to hurt, and his knee wasn’t exactly happy with him either at that point. He’d been crouching down in the same spot for a while now, just watching. He just hoped he could sneak back to Gabriel’s house the way he came—some kind of labyrinth of back alleys—and hang around there until Cas got back, and he hoped he could do it soon. He had no idea how much time Cas usually spent at the market.

   He _really_ should’ve thought this through.

*

   Looking back at the whole situation later, Dean wasn’t sure how he managed to get back without being seen. Something about staying in the shadows, which there were plenty despite the sun reflecting off every goddamn building around. He was starting to wonder if it’s ever anything but sunny here.

   (Later, Cas would explain to him they had a monsoon season during which one wondered if the rain would ever stop again, and that it wasn’t fun to deal with at his house. That was why all their buildings were so high now, he said. There was nothing on the first floor of those. But that was all later, in the safety and comfort of Cas’s home that Dean realized he’d been taking for granted ever since he got here.)

   When he got back to Gabriel’s house, however, it became clear right away that he was too late. Cas was pacing around in front of the house looking _pissed_ , and the worst thing was that Dean knew he couldn’t fault him. Cas hadn’t been trying to keep him safe just so Dean could run off and get caught by some less friendly alien.

   Not that any such thing had happened, but Cas didn’t know that.

   “Cas, shit, I—”

   “Dean,” Cas snapped when he noticed him. His glare shut Dean up right away. “Where have you been?”

   Dean couldn’t help the snort that came out at Cas sounding like a worried mom. It was ugly and out of place and he didn’t mean for it to happen, it just did. It wasn’t going to get him back in Castiel’s good graces, though. “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.”

   “I should hope so. I was worried.”

   “I know. I appreciate it, man, but you gotta know I can—”

   “You can _not_ take care of yourself.” It sounded harsher than anything Cas had said to Dean before, but it wasn’t just the tone that hurt. Dean _knew_ he was fucking useless out here. He didn’t have to be reminded of being a burden like that. “Shit, Cas, fine. I get it.”

   “No.” Cas spread out his wings, fully because he could do that when he was outside. They looked threatening now, hiding Dean away from the sun while Cas got closer. “I don’t think you do.”

   Shit, he wasn’t just upset with Dean, he looked furious. Dean stood straighter, an automatic response taught by his dad because it meant he was paying attention. John called it showing respect.

   Dean called it avoiding his father’s anger.

   Cas was crowding him, backing him up against the wall of Gabriel’s house until he had nowhere else to look but at Cas, and it made Dean’s heart hammer against his chest in something he’d rather not call fear. It was a different kind of fear than that time he freaked out in his room—then, he’d known, rationally, that Cas wasn’t there to hurt him. Now, though—

   “You do realize that I took a risk in helping you? Letting you into my house? You could have turned out to be a spy, dangerous to my planet. You still might. But I disregarded that risk to save you. I disregarded the risk you might post and what would happen if certain people found out what I did. I may not live amongst my people, but they are still my people. I betrayed them in a way, and I did that for you.”

   Dean swallowed thickly. Cas was too freakin’ _close_. Dean could feel the other’s breath on his face, and he was sure he could feel the anger radiating from him rather than see it. The alien was pressing him against the wall with one arm and Dean was pretty sure it was just to remind him how strong his kind was. And hell, was Dean reminded. He couldn’t _breathe_.

   He didn’t say anything, for once. Dean knew he was good at letting his mouth run without his brain thinking about the messages it was sending, and this time he finally knew it was the right time to keep his mouth shut. He just wanted Cas to get out of his personal space.

   “I am a traitor,” Cas said, “because I want you to get back to your family safely. Do not disregard what I am doing for you by ignoring my wishes.”

   Dean didn’t know when he let his muscles go weak, but when Cas let go of him he nearly sagged to the ground, gasping for air. “You’re not about to kill me?”

   “That would be contradictory to my interests.” He sounded eerily calm again. Dean didn’t trust it. There were a whole lot of other things someone could do to hurt you.

   “Oh,” was all that came out of his mouth.

   Cas didn’t ask him if he was ready to go back to his home. He just gripped Dean tight unexpectedly and took off. It kinda hurt, and it sure as hell nearly gave Dean a heart attack before he realized they were taking off (and then nearly another one when he realized _they were taking off_ ), but he didn’t say anything about it. He got it. He wanted to tell Cas that it had all gone fine, that he (frankly) didn’t see what all the bother was about because it hadn’t seemed all that likely he was going to get caught, but he was afraid that if he did Cas would actually drop him. The ground was a little too far beneath him to risk that.

   It was a rush of adrenaline that got him to do it. He was scared as hell when they arrived at the city not hours earlier, but that feeling somehow didn’t seem to weigh up against his yearning to understand his surroundings. So he took the risk. That’s what he did back on Earth, too, and he didn’t usually get in trouble that way; he survived that way.

   There was a lot he wanted to ask Cas. If their lives were filled in like humans’ were, the same way their cities were designed like his ancestors designed them. How he found his home. How the hell they managed that whole thing where the city was invisible until someone told you to _look_.

   If he could have a proper look at Cas’s wings again. Y’know, without feeling threatened as hell by them.

   He didn’t ask any of them. Cas’s grip was almost bruising. Dean would let him cool off for a bit.

   It was hard, though, when he had all these questions fighting for attention in his head. Thing was, he kind of got these questions by spying on Cas’s people. The exact thing that the other man— _not a dude,_ being _, he remembered—_ low key accused him of doing, except Dean wasn’t planning on telling anyone back at home. Not even Sam. Not now, anyway.

   Cas landed someplace that looked just like everywhere else and folded in his wings right away, turning to open the way into his house without so much as looking at Dean. Dean tried not to feel like he was walking inside with his tail tucked between his legs, but it kinda really did.

*

   The rest of the day was tense. Part of Dean wanted to retreat to his room to escape it, the other part wasn’t sure if he should or if Cas would just think he was sending info back to Earth. Shit, he didn’t realize it would look like that was his plan until the other man mentioned it. He didn’t realize how badly he’d fuck up.

   He wanted to explain himself even if he knew there was no way he could because he didn’t have a good reason for sneaking out on Cas like that. But Dean wasn’t good with words. He never had been. Sam was the feelings guy in their family. Dean was the guy who did shit without thinking about it, let alone talking about it.

   Not to mention that there were some kind of _feelings_ involved here. Not _I love you so much_ kind of feelings, but still—gratefulness and, if he was being completely honest with himself (and that didn’t happen a lot) _admiration_ weren’t exactly Dean’s forte either.

   He hung around on the sofa thinking about all of this for at least an hour before Cas joined him. Neither of them said anything, and they were sitting on opposite sides as far away from the other as possible. Dean wondered if this was Cas’s way to say that he was still cool with Dean being here even though he was angry, or to say Dean needed to sod off and let Cas use his own living room.

   He seriously hoped it was the former.

   Cas didn’t do or say anything. He just sat there reading his book like Dean wasn’t even in the room, and Dean was finally starting to feel awkward and was contemplating just getting up and leaving when he heard quietly, “I don’t like the idea of my kin knowing you’re here.”

   “I know.”

   “I do not mean it like that.”

   “Um,” Dean said, because he had no idea what that was supposed to mean, let alone how to reply to it.

   “You are the first human that has ever been to our planet.” Cas closed his book and looked at Dean seriously. “You are the first human that I have ever spoken to, and you are not anything like I expected. Not many of us have ever met any of you even if we could visit your planet. It is considered quite… backwards. You wage many wars among yourselves. You have for a long time.”

   Dean almost wanted to laugh at that. He didn’t. Cas was obviously telling him something the man was not entirely comfortable with, like he was just as great with feelings as Dean was, and if Dean interrupted him he might stop talking about it altogether.

   “But now one of you is here, and you surprise me in many ways. You are an interesting human.”

   Dean couldn’t help himself. “You saying you want to keep me for yourself, Cas?”

   He didn’t expect Cas to blush and look away. “No, I…” But he said nothing else, and Dean was pretty sure that meant he was right.

   “Don’t worry,” he said only half-jokingly. “I like you too.”

   Cas flushed even deeper at that, and there was a sound like his feathers were rustling. Dean couldn’t stop the grin that formed on his face. _Don’t push it, don’t push it, do not push it._

   They settled a bit more comfortably after that, Dean only leaving once to go get his own book, because he was such a damn slow reader he still hadn’t finished it. (So maybe it was sort of interesting even though it couldn’t be further from the truth. So what? He kinda liked Marvin.) There was a lot to say about them reading together on the couch that Dean didn’t dare delve into too deeply.

   It wasn’t about intimacy. They weren’t touching each other in any way, not even the occasional bump of an elbow. It had more to do with a kind of feeling that hung between them, especially after that conversation, and Dean wasn’t ready for it. Cas was an alien that looked like a guy, although he claimed to have no gender. How many more reasons did he need not to?

   He tried not to think about it, but he was hyperaware of Castiel’s presence beside him. Christ on a fucking cracker, this wasn’t going as planned at all.

   Dean was almost grateful when he couldn’t hold in a yawn, because it was a valid reason to get the hell outta there. He hadn’t read a word for a while now, too busy restraining himself from scooting closer to Cas like he was some kind of twelve year old with a crush. He wasn’t twelve, and he did not have a goddamn crush. He barely knew Cas. He had no idea what it was the guy—person—liked aside from reading and doing research. He didn’t even know what his favourite food was—or his favourite colour. They barely even _talked_.

   All he knew was Cas lived away from civilization for some undisclosed reason, he did research after maritime creatures that lived god knew where (because Dean hadn’t seen any body of water yet aside from the one in the cave, even if Cas had a perfectly decent tap so it had to be coming from somewhere), and he grew his own food.

   Suddenly he felt kinda bad about never taking the time to get to know _Cas_. As a person, not as an alien. Dean was either busy being too worried about what to do next, or more interested in the ways Castiel differed from himself. He never cared much about ways in which they might be similar.

   “Hey, Cas?” he asked when he was already halfway the room to go to sleep. “What’s your favourite colour?”

   Cas tilted his head in confusion. “I like many colours,” he said slowly. “If they are natural, I like them.”

   “Yeah, but there’s gotta be one you like more than others, right?”

   The silence that followed stretched long enough for Dean to almost give up and just leave without an answer, but when he turned to do so he was pretty sure he got a quiet answer. “Green. I like green.”

   Dean didn’t fall asleep quickly, and it had nothing to do at all with being unable to stop wondering what the colour green meant to Cas.

*

   When he woke up, he learnt at least one thing—he shouldn’t be thinking about Cas until well into the night when he hadn’t gotten laid in forever.

*

   The two days after that were, for lack of a better term, weird.

   Okay, so part of it was definitely on Dean. When the time came that first morning to face Cas for breakfast again, all he really wanted was to stay in bed and hide from the guy forever, because he did _not_ just wake up from a dream involving him with sticky boxers like a teenager. And if he did, it was just because he couldn’t even remember the last time he cleaned the pipes, let alone have someone else help him with that.

   There were a lot of things Dean tried not to think about lately, all of them involving a certain person with black wings.

   It wasn’t just that, though. He felt like it was written on his forehead, but Cas didn’t act like he knew or even suspected anything.

   They didn’t really talk about anything serious in those two days, like what happened, what was said at Gabriel’s, or what Dean was supposed to do next. Instead they were playing some kind of tentative game of twenty questions that made them sound like they were twelve years old but that Dean secretly enjoyed.

   It started with Cas hesitantly asking after Dean’s favourite colour over breakfast. (Dean told him he was relearning so many colours here that he couldn’t choose, but he secretly thought the answer was blue.)

   Cas just hummed in terms of a reply.

   It set something off. They didn’t talk about anything serious, but whenever a question popped into their heads they would ask them at any moment. Sometimes it just got a short answer, other times it lead to light conversation. They were constantly threading on thin ice and Dean found himself missing that easy feeling he was now starting to realize he’d had there. It was his own fault, though. He hadn’t ever given Cas a valid reason to trust him to begin with. He wanted to now, but he had no idea how.

*

   “Hey, Cas? How come you live in a cave, but you’ve still got plumbing?” Dean asked the next day, after he’d just taken a piss. The toilet was a large cylinder with a hole in the middle and edges just broad enough to park his butt on should he need to, and it just stuck out of the ground like that. There was a handle on the wall that you pulled to flush—at least, that was what Dean assumed it did, since you couldn’t really see or hear anything. Apparently the cylinder was pretty deep.

   The whole contraption was located behind a wall that Dean hadn’t even noticed when he first got here because the opening was a narrow one behind the main wall of the room. It was a square G-shape with the pot at the end and there were no doors, which made Dean self-conscious at first about doing a number two until he remembered he was far more out in the open back at the cave after the crash. Cas never looked then, either.

   There was another one of these openings in the wall right next to the first, except the square in the middle was much bigger. It lead to a bath that went from wall to wall and that was always filled with cool water. (According to Cas, there was some kind of filtering system that kept it clean.) Dean thought it was awesome.

   “This house is very old,” Cas answered. “Before we had the technology we have now, we hid in a more basic way. Living underground. We moved above ground the moment we were sure we could, for reasons you can probably imagine, and these houses got abandoned. But they are still perfectly habitable.”

   “Why didn’t you move above ground with everybody else?”

   That was it. He broke the ice they were threading on. Crashed straight through it, if the set of Cas’s shoulders was any indication.

   “I was not yet born when the move happened. I was born above ground. I found I prefer these places over the modernity of the cities.”

   It was at least partly a lie. Dean had a good bullshit detector; he could sense it. Still, if Cas didn’t want him to know, he wouldn’t push. He’d exchange what little information he got for some of his own instead.

   “We’ve considered going at it the other way. Building inwards instead of expanding outwards. Only reason it didn’t happen is ‘cause we didn’t have the technology to keep the air inside clean enough. That’s a lot of people to provide oxygen for where there is none.” He couldn’t imagine having to live his whole life underground. It sounded horrible. Claustrophobic. It may be awful above ground on Earth, but at least there was some kind of freedom to it.

   Cas sighed, and the hesitant look on his face told Dean he wasn’t entirely sure of what he was going to say next. He put his hand against the wall and once again, it was like the light was pulled toward that single spot. “These walls provide us with clean air down here,” he explained. “Without them, I could not live here.”

   It was big, Cas telling him this. Dean recognized that. It was the first thing that Cas told him about the ways of his planet completely voluntarily. Somehow it didn’t feel like enough to say “thank you,” so Dean said nothing. Judging by the look on Cas’s face, the alien got it anyway.

   Damn, Dean really was turning into a girl, and he didn’t even mind it.

*

   Of course, it couldn’t last long. Good things never did with Dean, and then there was the whole thing where this actually really _wasn’t_ a good thing to begin with. There were times that Dean almost forgot that, and that may actually be the worst of all of it. Because Dean had never let Sam’s safety slip to the back of his mind before. He promised.

   It wasn’t that he’d forgotten about _Sam—_ rather that, despite the tenseness that conversations with Cas now sometimes caused, it was also kind of _comfortable_ here. He didn’t have to worry about whether he’d have food, or work long hours just to have to sleep in a bare, cold cell. He helped out Cas in the garden and the house, but it didn’t feel like work. It was just something to keep him occupied that was the least he could do to repay the guy for all he did for Dean.

   Dean didn’t mind work. He never understood what people used to do with their time in the Tech Age—he knew they had computers and televisions and all other kinds of crap, but he just couldn’t imagine spending his days like that. Although he knew they had books, too, and sometimes he and Cas hung around after dinner reading on the sofa and it was surprisingly nice. Dean never used to have time to read once he got out of school, but he found he liked it more than he expected. He finally finished _The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy_ and moved on to a different book that Gabriel brought back from Earth, something with hobbits and dwarves and other weird creatures that Dean had yet to decide if he liked.

   It was comfortable. He worked, but they quit at decent times and had decent meals and then took the time to relax. They talked about insignificant things. Dean hadn’t talked to anyone about insignificant things since John died, let alone after he ended up in prison—the only one who talked to him who didn’t have to for work was Sam, and he wasn’t allowed to visit all that often.

   And that brought him back to _how could he stop thinking about Sam at all?_ Dean wasn’t the kind of person who valued comfort over family, dammit. Family came before everything else. It had always been like that, especially since it was just two of them.

   “Dean.”

   Sam’s voice was shaky when he called that day, and Dean—who was reading the weird book on the sofa—sat up immediately. “What’s wrong?”

   “It’s Jess,” Sam said.

   “Oh,” Dean said, closing his eyes and letting out an unhappy breath. “Shit, I…”

   “Don’t.” Sam’s voice was angry underneath the shaking. “I’m going to torch these fuckers until they tell me where she is.”

   Dean was vividly reminded of the time when he was four years old and their mother disappeared off the face of the Earth. He didn’t remember their father’s exact words, but Sam was sounding scarily similar. “Sammy,” he started, but he had no idea what to say. Dean was a child when they lost Mary. It wasn’t the same.

   “First Mom, then Dad, now Jess—something’s going on here. And they almost got you too.” His voice sounded almost childlike at the end for a moment. “I can’t lose everyone like that. They can’t do this to people.”

   “I know,” Dean said. “Sam, what happened?

   “I don’t know,” Sam said, sounding years younger than he really was. “I got home after work, and she didn’t. I went back and nobody could tell me where she was. Said they thought she’d gone home, too.

   “Did you find anything? Over there?” Sam sounded almost hopeless, and Dean wanted to punch himself in the face for not having bothered with the whole thing as much as he should’ve. He was here living the easy life, only occasionally actively trying to find something, and now Jess was gone, the same way Mary had suddenly no longer been there.

   “Not yet.” He hated lying to Sam. “We’re working on it, I promise.”

   “Yeah. Okay.”

   His little brother sounded so dejected. Dean vividly remembered the last time he sounded like that—it was when Dean ended up in jail for him, and Dean would never forget the look on Sam’s face the moment he was allowed to see him.

   “Hey. We’ll figure this out, okay?” Dean wished he could say something more useful, but he’d kind of given up for a while after their visit to Gabriel. Not that he wasn’t planning on leaving here, but… the plans had gotten on hold a little.

   “Sam,” Cas suddenly said, and Dean nearly jumped out of the sofa. He’d forgotten Cas was still there. Usually he was incredibly aware of Castiel’s presence, but he had more important shit to think about now, and Cas tended to be so quiet it was almost like he wasn’t there at all. “Your brother is a good man. I believe you are as well.”

   It seemed such an incredibly random thing to say at this point in the conversation, but Dean had learned to understand Cas by now. He just had to sound so formal all the time.

   “Um,” Sam said shakily.

   “I want to help,” Cas continued. He was looking straight at Dean now. “Whatever you need, I will help. I believe you are deserving of it.”

   Dean could feel one of the corners of his mouth turn up involuntarily. “Thanks, Cas.”

   Sam wasn’t saying anything. It was slightly worrying, since Sam was the kind of person who always had something to say about everything.

   Cas was still looking at Dean.

   “We’ll find her,” Dean finally said, with more conviction than he really felt. “Whatever’s going on, we’ll find out, yeah?”

   “For Jess,” Sam said.

   “For Jess,” Dean agreed. “For Mom and Dad.” And Jo, and the others on Dean’s ship, and all the other people who had somehow gotten caught up in this mess. They should’ve looked into this far sooner, right after Dad’s ship disappeared, but Sam was so young back then and it was so hard to survive.

   Dean rubbed a hand over his face and clenched his jaw. He was only ever busy with surviving. Easy not to worry about someone coming after you to figure out what happened to their Dad when they barely managed to stay alive, wasn’t it?

   “You gotta talk to Bobby.”

   “Are you sure?”

   “If we can’t trust Bobby, we can’t trust anyone.” They both knew it was true. Bobby had given up all he could for them when no one else was willing to.

   “Great,” Sam said. “I hate keeping things from Bobby.”

   “Yeah.” Bobby was the one person Dean had never been able to lie to. John was different; he always just seemed to _know_ when Dean lied. But Bobby… Dean couldn’t get his conscience to do that. He shouldn’t have asked Sam to do it for him.

   “Call you back when I’ve talked to Bobby,” Sam said. “Might take a while. I don’t wanna attract too much attention—now.”

   Dean swallowed, but his throat was dry. “Watch out for yourself.”

   “Yeah,” was all Sam says before he disconnected.

   “Shit,” Dean said. Cas looked at him sadly, hesitantly put a hand on Dean’s shoulder. It didn’t mean anything that Dean found himself leaning into the touch. It was just nice. “What am I gonna do, Cas?”

   “Figure this out,” Cas copied Dean’s own words.

   He wanted to. He wanted to find out what happened to Jess, and who didn’t mind murdering five people to keep something from Earth’s general population. The conversation with Sam had sparked a new fire in him that made him want to find out what happened to his parents, too. Dean didn’t believe in coincidence.

   “Yeah,” Dean said roughly. “Cas, I know you think it’s a bad idea, but I’m gonna get to Atala if it’s the last thing I do.”

   Cas pursed his lips as if he wanted to say _it might as well be_ , but he didn’t. Instead he said, “Alright.”

   Dean raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

   “I said I would help you. I understand now that this is more to you than resources.” He narrowed his eyes. “I understood a while ago that there is more to you than I expected from any human. I took you inside my home because of this. I can aid you in saving yours.”

   Dean was pretty sure by this point that there was no saving Earth—whether he really had a home there was arguable. Even if they did find resources, there were people who would keep them from the rest of the population. He thinks he might have always known this; ever since he was a kid and saw people who had enough credits to buy themselves synthetic meat while Dean and his baby brother were nearly starving. He used to be happy no one ever checked up on them while they were at Bobby, to see if the man could take good care of them, because Bobby was the only one in the world who he trusted. But when he got older, he realized it was only because no one cared whether he lived or died.

   Sam was always the one who was angry at the world for it, the one who snapped angry words between four walls about the government and richer people and even about their Dad for leaving them. Dean had no idea where he got that from, because Bobby and him tried to keep that kind of talk town as much as possible. They didn’t want to risk Sam repeating them and the wrong people overhearing it.

   Dean tried to stay more positive, anyway. Or maybe he was just naïve. It didn’t matter now. He’d lost so much that he was having a hard time believing anyone but his closest family was worth saving.

   “Atala is dangerous,” Cas continued. “More so than Xa’ar. There are many good people here even if they are wary of humans.”

   “I don’t care,” Dean said for what felt like the thirtieth time, with more conviction than ever. Jess was gone. He’d come to know her a lot better since he got here, and she was a good person. She didn’t deserve to be caught up in this shit.

   “Alright,” Cas said. “I have an idea.”


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

**Interlude**

* * *

 

**WHAT WAS LOST IN THE WAR**

**(an incomplete but significant list)**

   The option of travel to any place on Earth, no matter how remote, although the post-war era saw a blooming of space travel technologies that had been inconceivable before. Still was, to many people living far from any space tech centre. Smartphones. Laptops. Wi-Fi. Any easy access to communication with any human being who did not live close. This was the main difference, the one that even now, everybody still understood they were missing. The comms were reserved for people working for the tech centres. Technology had surged beyond what their ancestors had ever imagined, and in doing so, it had crashed.

   They could travel to different galaxies, but they could barely get further than a few miles away from home.

   Food was lost—at least, food in a way that mattered. Restaurants. Fine dining. Fast food. Drive-thrus. Flat burgers with plastic cheese on soggy buns. Fizzy drinks, but not alcohol. Clubs. Music. Drunk, sweaty people dancing too close to each other in dark spaces with flashing lights.

   Swimming pools and all other places that spent an unnecessarily big amount of perfectly good water on amusement rather than necessity. (Showers.) (Flushing toilets.)

   Zoos. Amusement parks. Museums. Art and most importantly, the time to make it.

   Movie theatres. Movies themselves, mostly, because there were not many spaces left to show them and the televisions that had survived the war gradually broke down. New programs weren’t being made, both because barely anyone would see them and because there weren’t any spaces or equipment—any money—to film them. News travelled slow. Newspapers were banned because paper became too valuable. Anything you heard had travelled orally, and that made it even less reliable.

   Things that defined humanity. There was only survival now.

   Most of the world’s population. Almost all of Europe’s.

   Indirectly, Dean Winchester’s innocence, years later.

   The war made us lose these things, people said. These were the people that took over the leadership at the tech centres, succeeding those who had poured in blood and sweat to rebuild some semblance of the old world.

   Nobody questioned them.

   Everyone agreed something like this was never to happen again.


	10. Chapter 10

* * *

**Part II: A long-expected planet**

* * *

 

**Nine.**

   Cas left Dean alone in his house to go talk to Gabriel again. Dean hated it. He hated the guy. It didn’t matter that, if he was honest about it, he could see why someone would leave a foreign planet the moment it all started going to shit. Especially since Gabriel was only one guy. Even if their technology could’ve saved Earth, one person could never have managed to build it all.

   But Dean wasn’t honest about it, so that wasn’t a problem.

   He hung around the house. He cleaned up, but stopped doing that the moment he realized he was acting like a stressed housewife. He tried to read, but he knew from the get go it was just pretence and indeed he couldn’t manage to move his eyes over the words. The fuck should he care about a hobbit? Hobbits didn’t even exist. Fantasy was a horrible genre.

   He tried making himself a snack, and it didn’t taste half-bad, but that might be because Dean hardly tasted anything at all right now.

   Cas stayed away for a long time. Dean guessed it took a lot of convincing to get Gabriel to help them, which only made him hate the guy more. It was the least he could do, wasn’t it? Help a guy out who was trying to save the planet the alien had lived on comfortably for years.

   (Years. Years ago. Shit, these people were so _old_.)

   When the winged creature finally returned, it was with the question, “You are good with technology, yes?”

   “I’m a mechanic,” Dean corrected him.

   “Alright. Gabriel says we will need that, and—” And he actually used air quotes there, “a ‘whole lotta stupid’.”

*

   There was an old spaceship in a hidden garage, for lack of a better word, somewhere closer to Cas’s home than Gabriel’s because it was out of the way and no one would suspect Cas of hiding a spaceship. Specifically, because Cas couldn’t fly them.

   It sounded completely insane. Dean was pretty sure Gabriel was completely insane. But he was going along with it, so he couldn’t really judge.

   The garage was underground in a cave similar to the one Cas had made his home in, except this one didn’t have a bath or a washroom. Dean didn’t ask how Gabriel managed to get it there, or how they were going to get it out. He assumed the roof was able to open up or something like that. Gabriel appeared to dislike him even more after he made Cas worry like a madman, so Dean tried to accept shit as a fact rather than challenge him.

   The ship was his—Gabriel’s, that is. It was the one he’d been to Earth with, and all around the galaxy. He claimed it was an old thing, but when Dean took a closer look, he realized this was way more complex than anything he’d worked with before. Alright, so maybe the guy was right about their technology lagging behind.

   “This baby hasn’t been out in the open since I returned from Earth,” Gabriel said. “I hid it here to make sure they wouldn’t confiscate her.”

   “They?” Dean asked, raising his eyebrow.

   “Authorities, Dean-o. We have them too.”

   Dean didn’t know why that is shocking. He guessed that despite that he was consistently proven wrong, he kept expecting things to be radically different here. He was almost disappointed that they weren’t.

   “So anyway, I’m gonna leave you two kiddos to it. You boys have fun now.” He was quiet for a second before adding, “If you screw this one up, I will end you.”

   Dean had been half expecting Gabriel to stay and help out, although he wasn’t going to admit that out loud. The guy showed no inclination toward helping out any more than he had to, and even that had been grudgingly. It would’ve been too much to ask, apparently, even though this was way out of Dean’s league. It seems pretty similar to Earth’s ships in basic structure, but Dean had only ever worked with materials that have been recycled from other, older things like cars and airplanes. This thing looked all shiny and new, except for the part where the entire left side of the ship was damaged.

   Cas, it turned out, was eager to help, but not familiar with the job at hand in the slightest. He hung around at the garage and helped out when he could see Dean was puzzled about things like materials he didn’t recognize. At least he wasn’t in the way and the little information he could provide while Dean checked out the damage was useful. He didn’t talk too much outside of that. He looked worried.

   And Gabriel owned a lot of material. It was, however, random and battered enough that Dean was sure it had been scavenged illegitimately, which made sense, if Gabriel wasn’t supposed to have the ship stowed away to begin with. Dean had no idea how the guy managed to do that without anyone noticing, but he was scared to ask. He didn’t really care, anyway, as long as the thing got him where he wanted to go. The only problem was that in its current state, it wouldn’t.

   “The hell did your brother do with this thing?” Dean asked Cas incredulously. “It’s fucking wrecked, man. I don’t know if I can salvage this.” Dean was pretty sure Gabriel had one of two reasons to do this—to get a free mechanic to work on his ship, or to see Dean fail epically. Possibly both.

   “Why’s your brother still got this thing, anyway? It doesn’t even fly.”

   “Gabriel’s reasoning is often beyond me,” Cas deadpanned.

   Dean laughed, even though he knew the other was serious. This whole thing was ridiculous. “What’s he even hiding it for?”

   “Our authorities were not happy with Gabriel leaving. His orders were different, but he turned off the tracking systems and disappeared.” It was evident from the way Cas said this that it wasn’t just the authorities who weren’t happy about this. “You may be able to imagine people were angry when suddenly he turned up again.”

   By people, he meant himself first and foremost.

   “Space travel is very well regulated,” Cas added, like he realized Dean got what he was really saying and wanted to talk over it.

   Dean went with it. “So they’d confiscate this thing?”

   “If they knew where to find it, they would have.”

   “Ain’t that something,” Dean muttered. “How does _he_ know where to find it?”

   “Grace leaves traces,” Cas said, like that was supposed to mean anything to Dean. “Gabriel may use sigils to keep them from tracing his, but it would be impossible for him not to find anything infused with his own Grace.”

   Dean just hummed, deciding that he really didn’t care enough to ask.

   It didn’t take him too long to locate the main problem, even though he wasn’t familiar with the materials or the technology used for the ship. There was a huge dent in the exterior right behind where the engine was located, and whatever busted it up did its job well.

   Which probably wouldn’t be so bad if the engine was anything like those made for Earth ships, but it was a lot smaller and while there were certain similarities, there weren’t enough to ensure Dean knew what he was doing.

   “If anyone can fix it, it would be you,” Cas said, as though he knew anything about Dean’s competence. Dean got that it was supposed to be motivating and supportive, but it just made him more nervous. It was on him to fix this thing. If he didn’t manage it… He was trying not to think about what that would mean.

   “Alright,” he said. “Okay.”

*

   He started with the easy parts. The ones that were damaged, but didn’t look beyond repair. The ones that Cas could hand him the right materials for. It wasn’t going to make it look as good as new, but that was something Gabriel would have to deal with. Dean wasn’t interested in aesthetics.

   He did start with smoothing out the dents, but that had more to do with being completely sure. He had no idea how important it was for these things to be streamlined—generally, a dent would not hurt anyone, but as many as Gabriel’s ship had? Better safe than sorry.

   It took him days. Just this was already taking him days and he hadn’t even started on the most important part. He felt like he was wasting his time, even while simultaneously feeling like he was doing something useful for the first time in ages.

   Cas brought him there every day and hovered around, reading shit that Dean assumed had to do with his research while he worked. He kept forgetting that contrary to Dean himself, Cas actually had a life beyond all this.

   Cas didn’t seem to mind, so Dean tried not to feel guilty about it.

   Dean didn’t read on the sofa in the evenings anymore. He couldn’t concentrate. Dwarves wouldn’t get him to a different planet, after all. But he still sat next to Cas when it got too late to work on the ship (Cas preferred not to have to fly home with Dean in the dark) and just looked at the amused smile that played around the alien’s mouth, or the way his lips were tugging down when he read something sad, or the way he frowned at his texts.

   He was pretty sure Cas noticed the staring, but he didn’t comment on it. But when Dean woke up later, when the house had gone all dark, there was a strange, heavy blanket lying over him and he’d swear Cas was close enough that he could hear him breathing.

*

   It wasn’t the engine that posed a problem, despite Dean’s expectations. Or rather, it did pose a problem, but he’d worked with engines for years. This one may be more advanced than he anything he was used to, the basic structure still ended up being similar enough.

   The real problem was that once all the mechanical stuff was fixed and the exterior of the ship looked like it could withstand a journey again, it still didn’t _work_.

   “What the hell,” Dean muttered out loud. He’d swear he checked everything three times over, if not more. There was no way there could be more flaws in the mechanics of the ship. He was used to different materials, but he wasn’t _stupid_. He was pretty sure what he did to fix the engine was right.

   Pretty sure.

   There was nothing wrong with the mechanics—

   “It’s technical,” he muttered. “Shit. _Fuck_.”

   He wasn’t good with electronics. Not the same way Jo and Ash had been. He knew some basics, which was a requirement if you were working on space ships which were run largely by computers, but he wasn’t a wiz. He was gonna have to ask Gabriel, and damn him to hell if he had to admit that he couldn’t fix the thing himself, but this was the time to get over his pride. He couldn’t afford to lose more time.

   “Ah,” Gabriel said when Dean got Cas to ask him to, please, come to wherever the hell this ship was. “I forgot. I may have… got rid of the main drive.”

   “Excuse me?” Dean knew exactly what Gabriel means. The computer core was ruined, all its data were wiped. He just didn’t get why—or why the guy would _neglect_ to tell him this.

   “How do you think I’ve been able to hide this thing for so long? They could’ve tracked the core. Surely you know that.”

   Apparently, Dean wasn’t the only one of them who had a death wish, because Gabriel added, “So what? We’ll steal a new one.”

   It took a moment for Gabriel’s words to actually sink in. Dean lifted his stare at him, but the winged alien didn’t say anything else, nor did he smile. “You’re serious.”

   “Sadly, yes.” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Look, kiddo, I’m not happy about it either. I’d much rather stay at home and pretend there’s nothing going on. But apparently you two won’t leave me alone till you’re gone, so you can either accept my proposition and let me plan this shit, or you can keep on trying to fix that thing on your own, which we both know you can’t because neither of us know anything about the right data. Capiche?”

   “Fine,” Dean snapped. “What _is_ your plan, then?”

   “You know that dome at the other side of the city?”

   Dean wasn’t sure if he liked the tone Gabriel said that in. He didn’t need to be reminded of Cas’s anger that day. But he did remember the dome—it was hard to miss, really. “What about it?”

   “That’s where you wanna go,” Gabriel said. “It’s a storage space.”

   “Alright, so I just infiltrate that and steal a data drive, no big deal.”

   “Oh, please. You don’t strike me as a chickenshit, Dean. This is the only way you can get outta here, and we both know that’s what you want, so you’ll do it.”

   Dean grit his teeth. Gabriel wasn’t _wrong_ , exactly, except that (if Dean was totally honest with himself, which was a rare occasion) he didn’t really want to leave. He just had to. “Right. I need a map of the city and if possible a map or the general layout of the dome. Cas, you got any camouflage around or should we come up with something?”

   Gabriel got up and left without a word. Dean clenched his jaw, but otherwise ignored it.

   “I have cloaks,” Cas replied, frowning.

   “I’ll make it work.”

   They didn’t get a chance to say anything else before Gabriel returned, shoving something in Dean’s hands. “The map you so kindly requested.”

   Right. Technology. He had to stop forgetting about that.

   With Cas and even Gabriel’s help, planning out a route from Gabriel’s house to the dome was done faster than Dean expected. They marked escape routes too, just in case, although Cas growled something about not letting it get that far.

   Cas was coming, too. Dean wasn’t sure whether that was a comfort or just an extra source of stress. His friend knew more about the city than Dean did, and if it should somehow come to a fight, he was far more likely not to die than Dean was. But it was one thing for _Dean_ to take that risk. He didn’t have much of a choice. But Cas—he was risking a lot just for Dean with this, and that thought? Made him uncomfortable as hell.

   When he protested, Cas looked at Dean like he might smite him, though, so Dean was gonna have to accept that the guy was willing to do such a thing.

   (Gabriel, of course, was not, although he made it sound like it was all for their safety. “Who else is gonna get you two chuckleheads out of trouble?”)

   Their plans ended when they were supposed to arrive at the dome, because there weren’t any public ready-made maps for that they could use. They were going to have to rely on Gabriel’s memory. Dean hated it, but there wasn’t much else he could do.

   “Come back tomorrow,” Gabriel said. “Don’t look at me like that if you want me to draw this map at all, Dean-o. Remember I don’t actually owe you anything.”

   “Let’s go, Dean,” Cas said before Dean could even open his mouth to reply to that. Gabriel smirked at him. Dean had to refrain from making some very rude hand gestures.

   The thing was, he felt like what they’d been working on today wasn’t nearly enough. They spent hours on a goddamn route to the dome, and it felt like they’d forgotten to consider so many things Dean didn’t even know where to begin. It was stupid, because he was used to going into situations with less planning, but he only had one chance to do this right.

   Apparently he was being obvious about it, too. After dinner, Cas said, “We have time, Dean, if you need it.”

   “Do we?”

   “I’d rather Earth would have to wait a little longer on your discoveries than that you’ll never be able to make said discoveries at all.” He looked so earnest when he said it, Dean had to look away. “I do care about your well-being, you know.”

   “I—yeah. You too.”

   He could see, from the corner of his eye, Cas smiling shyly. “Shut up,” Dean told him uselessly.

   Cas’s smile just became wider.

*

   Dean was going to be the one who’d be doing the actual stealing. Of course he was. He wouldn’t let anyone else do it for him anyway.

   He had a feeling Cas, despite everything that had been said and done already, was still somewhat uncomfortable with the whole thing. He didn’t say anything, but he got this look about him that made Dean wonder if he regretted it, this whole situation.

   Not that he’d blame the guy. Dean knew he was more trouble than he was worth; especially since he got here. What’d he even do to earn his keep? Pluck some fruit? Really?

   But Cas didn’t mention it while Gabriel was marking down the last security points on the map, and Dean was too scared to ask.

   Anyway, the point was—Dean was gonna have to go in, because they wouldn’t be expecting a human, and so the security software would not be honed in to him as easily. At least, that was what Gabriel claimed. He also hadn’t marked particularly many security spots anyway. These people had to be angels or something, because there was barely any crime.

   (“People know their places,” Cas said solemnly when he asked.

   “Really? No one’s ever broken ranks before? You’re all just obediently shuffling around here?”

   Gabriel and Cas shared a significant look that felt like more than just “Do you hear this moron? What’s he think we’re doing here?” like Gabriel said jokingly right after.)

   And he could be okay with the plan. He never used to think anything through, anyway, and this time they had—routes, escape routes, security, everything. All that was left to do was figure out the quickest route to the right room while avoiding most of the security points. There was a calm washing over Dean that made it impossible to worry about it. It’d be fine.

   Dean kinda owed Gabriel for this.

   “That’s pretty much all I can do for you,” Gabriel said. “You remember all this,” he gestured at the map in front of him, “that’s the best plan I can get you.”

   “It’s great,” Dean said, even if that was a bit of an overstatement. And, reluctantly, “Thanks.”

   “You two both just get back in one piece, yeah?”

   “Yeah,” Dean repeated. It felt stupidly like a promise.

   It felt like a promise, too, when he said to Cas later that he’d be out of his hair soon, rather than the joke it was intended to be.

   “Dean,” Cas said wearily. “Please stop thinking of yourself as a burden. I have explained to you before, I _chose_ to help you.” He looked at Dean like that word meant everything, and Dean realized that it did. These people were apparently obsessed with hierarchies and obedience to it, and Cas may have been living outside the city for a long time before Dean got here, that didn’t have to mean anything. It couldn’t be easy to choose for yourself when you’d never been allowed to.

   And he chose Dean.

   “You’re, er—you’re sure you wanna do this,” he stated, and it was still more of a question than anything else but somehow it didn’t sound like the question Dean wanted to ask.

   “I’m sure,” Cas agreed, and it didn’t sound like he was talking about the mission, either.

   Dean didn’t know which one of them got into the other’s space first—it may be possible that it was him—but it happened, and he didn’t even mind. “I owe you everything, man.”

   “No.” Goddammit, Cas’s eyes were blue. “You do not owe me anything. I am helping you because I care.”

   “About me,” Dean said, because apparently he just really needed to hear it one more time.

   “About you.”

   Dean’s eyes involuntarily flicked to the other’s lips, and it seemed like the sight made him lose every filter he had between his brain and his mouth, because he heard himself say, “I’d really freakin’ like to kiss you right now.”

   And Cas just said, “Okay.”

   Dean’s eyes flicked back up to look Cas in the eyes. “Seriously?”

   Cas looked two seconds away from rolling his eyes. He didn’t. He cupped Dean’s cheek with one hand, and it felt ridiculous and sappy and Dean kinda really liked it when the other stroked Dean’s jaw once with his thumb before capturing his lips with his own.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "My grace is poison. I understood then why I am the only one whose wings are pitch-black.” He laughed bitterly. “But I was a coward, Dean. I still am.”

**Ten.**

   Of course when things seemed to be going well, or as well as possible in this situation, Dean had to fuck it all up.

   At least he got the drive to Cas before they got to him. He just hoped Cas got away in time. Gabriel would be happy, too—Cas would be safe, and with the drive he’d have a working spaceship again without having had to do shit.

   Dean couldn’t even find it in him to be angry. He wasn’t scared, either. He was actually not feeling much of anything.

   It was almost like he was back on Earth, except there was no Sam to visit him here. The prison cells weren’t much different, though. Cold and empty, and everything in it was made of rock hard material that he was no longer used to after living with Cas even for a short while.

   He should’ve known better than to believe this would work out as planned.

   It’d been a few days, by his guess. That was even more days on Earth, more days that he hadn’t been in contact with Sam. More days in which anything might’ve happened. He was alternating between nervousness about this, and complete apathy—mostly the latter. It was hard to feel anything but that in this place that reminded him that he’d always be the real outcast, wherever he went.

   That wasn’t something that would stop him if he could help it. He was trying to figure out a way to get the hell outta here, but despite looking pretty similar, these prison cells were far more secure than the ones on Earth.

   They were gonna have to get him out of this place at some point, though, right? The reasoning didn’t matter, they couldn’t keep him in this small, confined space forever, and he was gonna be ready for when that day came.

   As if on cue, there was a short, balding guy in a suit coming up to Dean’s cell. His wings were as bleak as the rest of him—including his skin. Where Cas’s was almost human, although a bit less colourful and darker than Dean’s own, his was practically grey, making the dull lights of his eyes in the semi-darkness of the prison look even more unnerving. He was wearing a grin that Dean didn’t like.

   “Hi there,” Dean greeted him anyway, because his default setting was ‘letting his mouth run and say stupid shit’. “You my entertainment for the day?”

   The alien just kept staring at him with that creepy smile, looking more like an alien than Cas ever had. Dean wasn’t surprised. No one had spoken English to him so far since they arrested him outside the dome, and he shouldn’t have been expecting them to. Cas didn’t speak it fluently when they just met, either, and he at least had a brother who did.

   “Y’know, I guess you’re not. If they wanted to entertain me they would’ve sent someone prettier.”

   The creep said something in a tone that, whether he understood Dean’s exact words or not, suggested he at least knew what kind of bullshit this dumb human was sprouting.

   “Sorry, didn’t quite catch that.”

   The alien was no longer smirking, even though he didn’t look any less menacing now that he looked serious. There was something in his eyes that Dean didn’t like—not the same way as with Gabriel, who had a look of mischief, but a more threatening kind of gleam. And then the door to the cell was opened and Dean was beckoned to follow. He’d be surprised they didn’t bring more guards if he didn’t know how much more powerful these guys were. It was a comfort, though. It meant they didn’t know any of their own kind had been involved in this.

   Or they could have Cas locked up somewhere secure, but Dean tried not to consider that option.

   He was brought to a place that he could only describe as a courtroom, which was already more than he got back home. Not that it was very useful if he couldn’t understand anything that was being said, let alone defend himself, but he guessed it was the thought that counts.

   There was a guy on a high chair directly opposite the door Dean was brought in through. He looked important. Sharp cheekbones, dark hair, huge white wings that made Dean think of an actual angel. At least his skin looked like it’d seen more sun than the bald one’s. It was not as pale and gray-ish. There was a bit more colour to it, not unlike Cas’s.

   There were rows of other people in the hall, too, wings in all kinds of different colours. Some of their eyes were glowing the way Cas’s had the first time Dean saw him, even though it wasn’t dark here. It was like they were trying to see into his soul. It was also the first time Dean thought he saw females of Cas’s species, leaner and with softer features.

   Dean should be nervous, but he wasn’t.

   The Important Person said something in a commanding voice that Dean didn’t understand. He thought he was probably supposed to sit down, but he didn’t. He’d like the option to be able to get out quickly if he saw a chance.

   Several angry looks were cast in his direction. Dean put on his most innocent face. Surely they knew he couldn’t understand them by now, or they’d figure it out soon enough. Maybe if he played stupid it’d work in his favour somehow.

   Important Person looked at him in irritation, kinda ruining the whole ‘angel’ look he had going on with those ridiculous wings, but Dean refused to back down. Either he was going to get out of this—whether that be by their choice or by running, didn’t matter—or he was going down, but it was going to be with dignity.

   Apparently, after a long look, it was decided he wasn’t worth the bother, as the guy started speaking in that weird garbling language that Dean still wasn’t used to. It sounded horrible, or maybe that was just because he didn’t know what was being said.

   The man stopped talking and watched Dean expectantly. Dean was pretty sure he was just asked a question, or he was supposed to respond to a statement or something. Which, great, but he didn’t know what it was. “Well, my name’s Dean Winchester. I’m an Aquarius. I enjoy long walks on the beach and frisky women.” When Important Person didn’t look impressed, Dean rolled his eyes. “Look, pal, you may have noticed this, but I understand fuck-all of what you just said. So you can either get me an interpreter, or, I dunno, let me walk outta here. I was planning on leaving your planet anyway, I’m pretty partial to the latter.”

   Important Person up in his high chair looked annoyed at the very nerve of Dean. He probably would’ve done better to just keep his trap shut, but come on, this was bullshit.

   Something else was said that Dean didn’t understand in Enochian, as Dean remembered it was called, and someone left the room in a hurry.

   Then there was silence.

   All eyes were on Dean now, and from what Dean could see, the expressions ranged from curiosity, to distrust, to outright disgust (mainly from the balding one that got him from his cell earlier and a darker, bald guy who looked at Dean like he was shit on the sole of his shoe. Dean didn’t like how it was those two who are positioned closest to the one with the angel wings.)

   _Uriel and Zachariah_ , the memory of Cas’s voice supplied helpfully. Dean guessed it was indeed them.

   He was never going to forgive himself for not taking action sooner, for getting comfortable here, but this was even worse. Everything was finally ready for him to leave, and he was being held up by this crap. He hadn’t heard from Cas since they arrested him that night, and while that made sense (perhaps he wasn’t allowed visitors, and anyway, it wouldn’t do Cas any good to be affiliated with him) it still kinda _hurt_.

   It was pathetic. They shared one goddamn kiss. Dean had no reason to feel this way.

   It took ages for something to happen. Then, when it did, Dean wasn’t sure how to feel about it. When the doors to the hall finally opened again, it was Gabriel who appeared and yelled something in an indignant tone.

   Of course it was. The guy did omit orders to go have a vacation on Earth, after all, and that suggested he was the only one who spoke fluent English.

   “So what do we have here, huh?”

   Dean just stared at him, unimpressed.

   “Right, I’m going to explain to you a thing. This here is a courtroom. The one up there with the fluffy wings is Michael. He’s in charge of things around here. We’re here to convince him about your innocence.”

   “You my lawyer now?”

   “Yes,” Gabriel said seriously, “I am, so you better follow my directions, bucko, and my first direction is for you to tell me what your goal was sneaking around that dome.”

   Dean opened his mouth to say something along the lines of ‘You know what my goal was’, but then he realized that he should at least try to keep up appearances, just in case. He wouldn’t put it beyond these people to have a spy among them who understood better English than they let on. The grey balding one didn’t seem above it. So he did tell Gabriel, as short and clipped as he could. “I need some stuff to leave this goddamn planet.”

   Gabriel turned around and, Dean assumed, relayed the words to Michael.

   Dean was pretty sure this was going to be a long day.

*

   Michael and his associates, unsurprisingly, did not believe him. Not about having crashed and not being a spy, anyway.

   Dean didn’t really give a shit, except they had the power to hold him here even longer, and he could’t afford to lose all that time. He was painfully aware of how little he heard from Sam the days before his arrest—something he’d been trying not to think about up until now. He was even more aware that they could hold him pretty much indefinitely. He had no idea what kind of laws they held up here, but these people’s stiff way of acting didn’t escape Dean’s notice even when he just saw them walking down the streets that first time. They didn’t seem like the forgiving type.

   The council members were chatting quietly amongst each other and kept shooting looks at Dean, especially Zachariah, who was in fact the balding creep that got Dean out of his cell. Dean was pretty sure he liked that one the least. There was something about him that told Dean the guy wouldn’t be satisfied with the outcome, whether it was at all favourable for him or not, simply because Dean was just a human.

   Dean tried not to sneer at him, because that would’t help his case at all.

   “They don’t seem very convinced to me,” he finally muttered to Gabriel, unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

   “You thought it was gonna be easy?” Gabriel answered, raising his eyebrows. “Didn’t seem to me like you had a lot of faith in the outcome to begin with.” When Dean didn’t answer, Gabriel lowered his voice. “Cut us some slack, you moron. We didn’t go through all that trouble with you just to let you rot away in some cell.”

   That did something to Dean that he’d be eager not to describe had he not admitted his feelings to Cas days before—sort of, anyway. Actually, he’d still rather not describe it, because he wasn’t a giant girl like Sam (who wouldn’t stop rambling about Jess when he first met her). “Okay.”

   “Good boy,” Gabriel said, smirking. “Now, when someone is on trial here, it will be finished in one day at the longest. Michael doesn’t like beating around the bush. He likes dealing with rogues as swiftly as possible, so everybody knows what happens to people who break the law.” He pulled a face, like he knew exactly what he was talking about from experience, which was probably true considering his history. “If they let you go, you will get a certain amount of time within which to leave the planet, and a fine, probably the costs the trial and then some. There’s no way you could afford that even if you were from here, but you don’t worry about that. You worry about getting the hell outta dodge.”

   “What if they don’t?”

   “You let us worry about that, too.”

   He didn’t like that. He had zero semblance of control in this room to begin with; he’d like to have some control over his escape, assuming that was what would happen.

   Michael cleared his throat.

   Everyone fell silent.

   The guy said something that Dean didn’t understand but still got the gist of, if his severe tone and the look on Gabriel’s face were anything to go by. “What’d he say? Gabe?”

   “Nothing good,” Gabriel said grimly.

   “So what do we do?”

   “Close your eyes.”

   “What?”

   “ _Now_ , Dean.”

   He wanted to question, but at that moment the doors to the courtroom flew open once again and, holy fuck, that ws Cas, except it _wasn’t_ Cas. The figure in the door opening threw his shadow over the hall, imposing and kinda freaky, and Dean got one moment to remind himself of Gabriel’s words when the figure’s entire skin started lighting up—suddenly the greyish colour no longer seemed grey, but bright silver—and he had to throw an arm over his face.

   He could still see the burst of light through his eyelids.

   When he deemed it safe to look again, after the light had dissipated, everyone including Gabriel was down for the count, and Cas—he was Cas again, now—was crouching on the ground. He looked exhausted.

   Dean shot one look at Gabriel before running in the opposite direction. “Cas!”

   “We need to leave.”

   It was a testament to Dean’s past and everything he’d seen here that he didn’t demand to know what happened first. Cas was tired, but he couldn’t take time to rest here unless they wanted to risk the chance that someone would wake up—assuming they were not all dead, that was. “What about Gabriel?”

   “He will be fine. We did plan this.”

   “Yeah,” Dean said. “Alright.”

   “We need to leave.”

   They ran. Cas was in no shape to fly, not with having to carry Dean’s added weight. Dean wasn’t sure what the guy did, but it must have drained him. Besides, flying creatures are easier to track, and they didn’t need anyone to be able to see the direction they were heading in from a distance.

   That direction was Gabriel’s house. Cas let them in and lead Dean to a cellar that Dean hadn’t expected to be there, and only then did he realize he hardly remembered any details of how they actually got here, or of anything that happened since Gabriel told him to close his eyes, for that matter. His head was rushing and there was a feeling of nausea that had nothing to do with the contents of his stomach. “What the hell was all that?”

   “I apologize.”

   “Wha—I’m not exactly _complaining_ here, you know.”

   Cas actually looked surprised at that. “Oh,” he said.

   Dean raised an eyebrow in question, because he did want to know what just happened. He thought of the people looking like they’d been knocked out in the courtroom, took a second to linger on that. The only question that he could come up with is, how?

   “My grace,” Cas muttered, and Dean wondered if he did ask that out loud. “My essence. As a human, you are not able to look at it. Your eyes would burn. But we were quite sure you also would not be susceptible to its powers.”

   “Quite sure?” Dean said, almost indignantly.

   Cas looked away. “I am sorry, Dean. It was the only way. My grace is… different than that of the others.”

   “Different how?”

   “In the way that it can take a hold of others of my kind.” He looked pained, like he wasn’t all that happy with this fact. “I have never deliberately used it on any of my kin before. I vowed I never would, after…” He trailed off. Dean waited a moment, but he didn’t pick up the story again.

   “Something went wrong, didn’t it,” Dean said quietly. He thought he understood why Cas said he preferred to live underground now, away from the city. “That’s why you live in exile.”

   “I chose it,” Cas said bitterly. “I should have agreed to their attempt to purify me. My grace is poison. I understood then why I am the only one whose wings are pitch-black.” He laughed bitterly. “But I was a coward, Dean. I still am. I chose to exile myself instead.”

   “Who’d you hurt?” Dean asked quietly, because he knew that tone of voice.

   “My brother,” Cas muttered. “It was an accident, I… I thought I had learned to control my emotions, yet I got angry, and I… It exploded. He wasn’t supposed to be there. My anger was not even aimed at him.”

   “Gabriel?”

   “Samandriel.”

   He had such a self-loathing and sad look in his eyes that Dean, in that moment, was quite sure Samandriel was dead. “C’mon.” He gestured for the other to come closer, and when he did, carefully wrapped him into a hug. “It’s not your fault, man. You didn’t mean to.”

   “That doesn’t take away from the fact that I did it. And I broke my promise to him. I used my grace to hurt again.”

   “I’m sorry.”

   “You have nothing to be sorry for, Dean. This is on me.”

   It wasn’t, though. He never would’ve done it had it not been for Dean. But for once, Dean didn’t mention it. He pulled back a little and let his lips brush over Cas’s jawline as he did. “Does that thing with the walls have anything to do with it?” he asked as he pulled away entirely.

   “I put my excess energy into my home more than is technically necessary. It helps keep it up, safe and hidden, and it helps me keep my grace in check. The less of it I have, the better,” Cas said bitterly. “I… I took up the excess earlier. So we would be sure there was enough.”

   Dean had no idea what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. He walked over to the nearest wall and said down, his back against it. “So how long are we supposed to stay here?”

   “Not too long,” Cas assured him. “We wanted to ensure they would not follow us to the ship’s hiding place, so we are making, as you would say, a ‘pit stop’.”

   “So is it…?”

   “It is ready to leave, yes.”

   Dean’s heart actually made a little leap at those words, he was sure it did. “Seriously?”

   Cas’s mouth twitched like he actually found some happiness in that. “Yes, Dean.”

*

   The ship looked much better than it had when Dean first laid eyes on it, and it was hard to believe they managed to do it in such a short timespan even if he was the one who did most of the work, and even though it still felt too long. It wasn’t a big ship, not by far as big as the one Dean arrived in—he was pretty sure this one was meant for one person, which was weird to him because that wasn’t how space travel worked. That wasn’t safe. That, and with the technology they had here they didn’t need to take up as much space for motors and control panels.

   But it wasn’t gonna be one person. Cas was already in the door opening, looking expectantly at Dean, who was loitering next to it. “What’s wrong?”

   “I just—” Dean started, but he knew, he _knew_ he couldn’t tell Cas not to come with him, not again, because he _wanted_ him to. “Are you sure?”

   Cas shot him an unimpressed look.

   “Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate all your help, but… if you come with me… Cas, I’ve got no idea what I’m gonna find out there. Someone didn’t want us to find that planet, and they didn’t care about killing us for it. And it makes no sense, but if they were ready to kill me once, they won’t hesitate on trying again if they find out I’m not dead—whoever _they_ are,” he added. “I need you to realize what you’re getting into.”

   “You may not realize it,” Cas stated in a tone that betrayed his annoyance, “but what I did to get you out of that court was not socially acceptable. I betrayed my people. I hurt my people. And I did it, all of it, for you. I have pointed this out to you before, but apparently you do not want to listen.”

   “Because I’m not worth giving up everything for!”

   “But I have, Dean. There was very little for me here, although I lived comfortably, but do you really believe Michael and Zachariah will allow things to continue like that now? It happened. There is no going back. I wish you would appreciate that.”

   He didn’t give Dean the chance to reply, but disappeared into the ship before the human could even open his mouth. Dean had no choice but to follow and resign himself to the fact that Cas was gonna throw away any chances of reconciling with his own kind because of him.

   There was a rumble above them the moment the door closesd behind Dean. He was pretty sure it was the roof opening above them, even though he couldn’t see outside from where he was standing. That meant Cas was already in the control room, getting them ready to leave.

   “I thought you didn’t know anything about spaceships,” Dean said nonchalantly when he wandered into there himself.

   “I don’t know anything about the _mechanics_ of spaceships,” Cas said. “I only know the very basics. Gabriel has attempted to explain this to me plenty of times in hopes I would join him on a trip someday. He gave me what you might call a ‘crash course’ on taking off before your hearing. I cannot fly on my own the whole way, but I know a little more, now.”

   “So we’re off?”

   Cas raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps you have missed it, but we have not moved yet. I would like to give you the honour to take off.”

   “Seriously?” Dean asked him, amused, but either Cas didn’t get it or he just pretends he didn’t, because he simply replied, “Yes.”

   “Alright then. Buckle up, we’re taking off in three, two, one…”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I got attacked by what, a super-intelligent shade of the colour black?”

**Eleven.**

   They tried to contact Sam through the ship’s communication system, which was miles better than Dean’s bustled up communicator, which he lost to the authorities on Xa’ar. It didn’t prove any easier this way.

   He tried not to let that worry him, but considering all he knew about what was going on on Earth was that it was probably dangerous, that wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

   “C’mon, Sammy, answer the damn thing.”

   He was aware that Cas was looking at him with worry in his eyes, but he ignored it. What was important right now was to get some news from his brother, nothing else.

   He was almost ready to give up again for the moment when the beeping sound stopped on its own, like someone picked up on the other side. “Sam?”

   “Dean.” He sounded exhausted. “I haven’t been able to reach you for ages.”

   “Lost my communicator to a bunch of assholes,” Dean said, ignoring the fact that their lack of regular contact had been going on for longer than that—and that this was a grossly simplified explanation. “What’s going on? Couldn’t reach you for a while there either.”

   “Couldn’t really find a good moment to call you. It’s been…” Sam trailed off, leaving a heavy silence for a moment before saying, “It wasn’t Ruby.”

   “Wait, what?”

   “Ruby’s dead,” Sam said, and there was a haunted tone to his voice that told Dean not to be an ass about it. If Ruby was dead, then there was no way she didn’t have anything to do with it one way or another, but Sam was no idiot. He had to know more than they did.

   “How?”

   “Poisoned.” Sam laughed hollowly. “Well, the official statement is she drank contaminated water, but nobody is stupid enough to believe that.”

   “Where are you now?”

   “Hiding,” Sam admitted. “I wanted to stay, I really did—I need to know what happened to Jess, and who killed Ruby, but Bobby… Bobby told me to get the hell outta here. I’ve never seen Bobby scared, Dean, but he was.” He sounded almost pleading, as though he was afraid Dean wouldn’t understand why he didn’t stay right where he was, but he also sounded scared of things that had nothing to do with Dean’s opinion. The older Winchester was suddenly reminded of days long past when he had to comfort Sam that he wasn’t leaving to never come back, like Dad had, after he’d come home later than planned. He wouldn’t leave Sammy alone in this world.

   He’d promised it then, but that promise still counted.

   “Sammy, c’mon. If Bobby tells you to get out, you get out.” Bobby might be a paranoid bastard, but he wouldn’t tell Sam to leave his home if there wasn’t a good reason for it. “You got a plan?”

   “No,” Sam said bitterly. “I _had_ a plan. Ruby was… I dunno, warming up to me, I guess. I was hoping it’d get me at least _somewhere_ to make friends with her.” He scoffed. “I guess it has. Hiding wasn’t really where I wanted to go, though.”

   “You can’t tell me you guys didn’t come up with any explanation.”

   “Bobby reckons it’s someone from higher up,” Sam admitted. “She was the head of EGC, after all, and it’s not like people generally liked her, but… I dunno, they didn’t actively hate her, either, you know?”

   “I know,” Dean said, because it was true. He might not have trusted her whatsoever, but the general population didn’t have anything against Ruby because they never had anything to do with her. They were just trying to get by, they didn’t give a shit about someone halfway the hierarchy of the tech centre who they had never personally met.

   “It’s gotta be someone who knew her. And something about her, I guess.”

   “And you don’t think that something could be, you know, her blowing us up?”

   “Maybe,” Sam conceded, “but then it would still make more sense for it to be someone higher up than her, right? Or they would’ve had a more difficult time getting the medics to vouch for such a stupid explanation.”

   Dean couldn’t deny that.

   “Anything else happen I gotta know about?”

   “No.” Sam sounded frustrated. “Dammit, Dean, it’s been weeks and we’re not any closer to finding out—well, _anything_.” He let out a harsh breath. Dean knew it was just misplaced anger, not to mention sadness at losing Jess, but he couldn’t help but feel guilt creep up again. _Weeks_.

   “We’re on our way to Atala,” he informed his brother.

   “ _What_? Why didn’t you say so earlier? You and Cas?”

   “Me ‘n Cas.”

   “Okay,” Sam said. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

   He sounded like a child again, watching Dean leave the house on his own for the first time since their Dad officially went off the radar. He got less vocal about his worry when he got older, not because he became less worried but because there was an unspoken agreement between them not to mention it. They had to keep up the appearance that Dean was handling it all just fine. For both of their sakes.

   “’Course, Sammy.”

   “Sam,” Cas interrupted from where he was standing in front of the control panels. “Please be careful, as well. If someone from high up killed your boss, they will not be afraid to kill you, either.”

   Dean really, really wished he hadn’t said that.

   “I know,” Sam said. “Keep in touch, yeah? Anything big that happens, I need to know.”

   “We will,” Cas said solemnly, even if neither of them had a communicator to call Sam with if something happened when they got off the ship. But when Cas said things in that tone, even Dean found it hard not to believe him.

   “You, too,” Dean added.

   “Yeah. I gotta go. Bye Dean—Cas.”

   He hung up before either of them get the chance to say goodbye, leaving Dean with nothing other to say than, “How much further?”

   “I believe you know this very well,” Cas said, and it wasn’t so much an accusation as a confused observation, like he’d had plenty before. Certain things humans did confused him, he said, by which he meant Dean. “Why do you keep asking?”

   “Never mind.”

   “Dean…”

   “Cas. Please. Don’t.”

   There had to be something in his voice heavy enough to get through to Cas, because the guy just nodded and turned back to the control panels.

   Dean wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse.

   “Go to sleep,” Cas told him. “You will need your rest before we arrive. I will wake you before landing.”

   The ship had been running on autopilot while they were trying to reach Sam. Cas didn’t know all the nuances of manual control, and Dean wasn’t up for teaching him right now. He was still running on pure adrenaline, although there was hardly anything to do on the ship and there was nothing he could pour his excess energy into. Besides, they didn’t have a lot of time for that. The trip iwasn’t long.

   “I’m not tired.”

   “Yes, you are,” Cas stated, as though he knew better how Dean felt than Dean himself. “What is the last time you’ve slept?”

   He opened his mouth to reply, only to realize that Cas was right—it had been too long. He knew from experience what happened if he forgot to sleep, and it wasn’t pretty. “What about you? You haven’t slept any more than I have.”

   “I need less sleep than anything you may be accustomed to.”

   “Right,” Dean said, sounding bitter to his own ears. “You’re not human. How could I forget.”

   He was pretty sure Cas just rolled his eyes at him. In any case, he didn’t give a reply, and suddenly the exhaustion crushed Dean like a wave. Maybe Cas was right. “You better wake me before we get there.”

*

   The landing went smoothly. Dean had changed back into his old spacesuit, which Cas must’ve mended at some point (although when he found the time, Dean had no idea), because it had two legs again and the holes were gone. Cas just smiled when he saw Dean emerge in it, like he’d known Dean would feel more comfortable in it and left it in the room for that specific purpose. He probably did.

   Dean didn’t find the right moment to thank him. He didn’t even think about it. When he emerged from the sleeping quarters, Atala was suddenly so close they could start the landing process practically right away, and Dean was properly awake again in an instant. Scared. Excited. He switched off the autopilot and hoped this landing would go better than the last.

   Atala, they found, was as beautiful from up close as it was from a distance. It looked nothing like the wasteland of Xa’ar that Dean first crashed into, where everything was either underground, or hidden. This, under the outer layers of the atmosphere that made Dean question this very idea, looked like what they said Earth used to look like.

   Pre-war Earth.

   “We can go out, if you’re ready,” Cas said.

   “Yeah.”

   He saw it all unfold in front of him in a daze. The door opened, and the air smelled _fresh_. He never realized just how dusty the air on Earth and Xa’ar was until now. Dean thought this was what people used to mean when they said the temperature was cool. Spaceships maintain a neutral temperature on the inside, and Earth weather was never moderate. But this, this was perfect.

   He stood in front of the ship for a long moment, taking in all of this and the surroundings that went with it, green and brown and yellow in places.

   “Are you alright?” Cas asked, a worried undertone in his voice.

   “Cas, I’m staring at a full, real-life treeline right in front of me,” Dean said. “Give me a minute, okay?”

   “Okay.”

   “Hey,” Dean said after a while. “Why don’t you guys live here? Doesn’t this suit you better? You could live above ground here.”

   “Most of us do live above ground,” Cas said, clearly not impressed.

   “You know what I mean, Cas.”

   “Xa’ar is home, to… most of us. It does not matter. This planet is occupied.”

   He knew that. Cas had told him, although he couldn’t tell him much about the people that lived here. (That weren’t supposed to live here, according to EGC, but then they had been wrong before). They were dangerous, he said, and they didn’t look anything like Dean or himself. Dean had started to imagine the long-limbed, big-headed creatures his ancestors had been afraid of, but Cas had just tilted his head and raised his eyebrows, and he’d stopped. Most likely, nothing in the entire galaxy looked like that.

   “Yeah,” was all he said. Of course it was occupied. It would’ve been too good to be true if it weren’t, if the planet looked like this in its entirety. And humanity might just screw it up again. It didn’t matter if it took thousands of years; Dean’s ancestors clearly didn’t care it would happen in a future they wouldn’t live to see, either. “Alright. Let’s check this place out.”

   “Take this.”

   Cas was holding out what looked like a holster. Dean had no idea where the guy procured it from, but he took it, albeit with a frown. “What is this?”

   “A Xa’arian knife,” Cas said. “It is… the only thing that could kill my kind.”

   Within the holster was a blade nearly as long as Dean’s forearm that looked pretty damn deadly indeed. The colour looked not unlike what Cas’s skin had turned into back at the courtroom, silver and shiny. The handle was comfortable in Dean’s hand, and the metal felt oddly light. It didn’t feel like anything that could do much damage, but when Dean ran his finger along the side of the blade to test this theory, it easily cut through his skin. Better than it looked, not unlike the planet it came from.

   Dean sucked his finger into his mouth to get rid of the blood welling up. He didn’t say out loud that such a knife would’ve come in handy a tad earlier than this.

   “Will it kill… whatever lives here that could attack us?”

   “Yes.”

   “And you’re…”

   “Stronger than you. I can handle myself.”

   It was a statement of fact, not meant to insult, and Dean interpreted it that way even though he still didn’t like the way it sounded. It was a reminder that out here in space, he wasn’t as independent as he’d like to be.

   He fastened the holster tight and nodded. “Alright then, let’s do this.”

   Walking away from the aircraft in the direction of the woods was strange for multiple reasons. He should have been here weeks ago, with Jo and Victor and Nancy and Ash safe and sound next to him, not with this alien being with huge wings folded against his back and the human crew long gone. They should have been updating Sam and EGC in real-time through two people who’d have stayed at the ship.

   But even then, this place was so much different than Dean was expecting. He’d honestly thought the air would be toxic after all and they’d die—even if they may be used to some level of toxicity from Earth. And sure, everybody knew they were going to check for resources, but he hadn’t been expecting this much green. It had never felt like it could actually be real.

   As they neared the edge of the forest, they turned right, walking along the line of trees but never entering the woods themselves. There would be cover in there, but not only for them. Who knew what the hell could be hiding in there.

   Dean swallowed nervously.

   They walked on for a long time without meeting anything alive as far as Dean could see. The ground had started sloping upwards and his legs were getting heavy, but little else changed. There were what seemed like mountains in the distance, but that was so far Dean couldn’t imagine them ever reaching that place.

   They didn’t stop until the edge of the forest suddenly came to an end to make way for a lake. It would’ve been nice, too—like the way Earth should be—if it weren’t bright yellow rather than the clear blue it should have been reflecting from the skies.

   “Do not touch the liquid,” Cas said quietly but urgently. “I imagine it is poisonous to humans.”

   “I wasn’t planning on touching anything that looks this much like pus,” Dean muttered. “You don’t know if it’s poisonous?”

   “I know it hurts my kind,” the alien said calmly, “and I know humans are more fragile.”

   “We’re not fucking _fragile_.”

   Cas didn’t deem that worthy of a reply.

   “So what now?”

   There were really only two options: into the forest after all, or to leave its cover altogether and take off around the side of the lake where few trees were scattered. Dean didn’t particularly like either option, but he was already inching closer to the trees despite his experience with open country—or perhaps because of it.

   Cas knew more about this place, and he didn’t tell him it was a terrible idea, so he figured it was better than nothing.

   “How likely are we to actually find anything here?” Dean finally asked after they’d been making their way into the forest for a while, close enough to the edge to still see the water of the lake. “I mean, I’m sure there’s gotta be something, but it’s a whole planet and there’s just two of us.”

   “I do not know if we will find anything you are looking for,” Cas said gravely, “but I am sure something will find us.”

   “That’s… uplifting.”

   He just shrugged. “I would apologize, but it’s likely the truth.”

   The problem was, Dean wasn’t entirely sure what they were looking for, either. That had been for Victor, and probably Nancy and Ash—he and Jo had got a quick rundown, but little detail. Or maybe they had been told, but he hadn’t been paying enough attention. Both options were equally likely.

   “I’ll know what it is when I see it.”

   He wasn’t kidding either of them.

   “Perhaps,” Cas said after a while, “there is no single thing to be looking for.”

   “The hell are you talking about?”

   “I do not believe resources are a machine or something else that you can take home and that will fix everything. You are looking in the wrong way.”

   He didn’t have time to ask Cas what the hell he was on about—not that, frankly, Dean didn’t already know—because before he could even open his mouth, he was suddenly knocked on his ass by a force he couldn’t even fucking _see_.

   “Dean!”

   “I’m fine, Cas,” Dean muttered, trying to inconspicuously rub what he was sure would become a large bruise on his ass by morning. “What was that?”

   Cas looked angry, his jaw squared and eyes hard. “The native… creatures of this planet, they are not necessarily… corporeal. This one appeared as a cloud of dark smoke. I thought, perhaps… But they only knocked you down.”

   “I got attacked by what, a super-intelligent shade of the colour black?” Dean asked dismayed as he scrambled back to his feet.

   “It is not a light matter,” said Cas, not appreciating the reference. Before he could elaborate, though, that _thing_ was back. Dean saw it coming this time, a fast-moving cloud of condensed smoke barrelling straight into their direction. There was only a split second for them to jump out of the way in opposite directions before it could hit them.

   Dean’s fingers grappled for the unnaturally light blade strapped to his leg without straying his eyes from the smoke that now hung between him and Cas like a miniature thundercloud. It didn’t seem like stabbing it would have the desired effect, but Cas gave the weapon to him, and he’d know if it wouldn’t, right?

   Right.

   He wasn’t sure if it was seconds or minutes until anything moved again. He wasn’t sure if he should move first, dive right into it, or if they should wait for that thing to attack. He’d been in fights before, but at least those were fights with humans—not the most understandable creatures, maybe, but at least he was one of them. At least he knew what they were capable of.

   Yeah, ‘cause that was a relief.

   In the end it didn’t matter how long they stood frozen—all Dean knew was it was too long, and after the week he’d had… He wouldn’t mind a fight. He couldn’t protect Jess and Sam, couldn’t save Jo, couldn’t have managed to survive on his own this far; but he could do this.

   Plunging his arm into the cloud was like plunging it into ice, which wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Not that he got to feel much of it: the smoke shot straight up like a rocket ship and back down in Dean’s direction, curling around him as it pushed him down to the ground.

   Fucking pathetic, was what it was. There was no way this stuff could be stronger than him. It wasn’t even corporeal, it was just friggin’ _smoke_.

   Except when it wasn’t.

   Right before his eyes the smoke solidified and turned into a pale girl with short blond hair and completely black eyes, smirking down at him. Blood was running down from a cut in her arm. “And here I thought we could be great friends, but you just had to go and stab me.”

   “Let him go.”

   “Or what?” she asked, not even turning to look at Cas.

   “Or I will stab you in your physical form.”

   “Protective. Does your human like that?”

   It was surprisingly easy to flip her over and pin her to the ground. She was strong, but she was also about as heavy as—well, smoke. “The hell do you think you are?”

   “Ohh,” she said. “He’s feisty.”

   “Megare,” Cas said through clenched teeth. “Please.”

   Dean had absolutely no idea what he was talking about until she sighed and said, “You’re such a killjoy, Clarence.”

   “You know this chick?”

   “Who are you calling a chick?” She was staring at him, and it was uncomfortable—like she was peering into his soul. Except she was no longer a _she._

   Dean yanked up his knee and hit whatever the hell this _thing_ was right in the balls. It didn’t as much as flinch. “What are you?”

   “Nothing your poor human brain could understand,” Sam’s face said with a smirk.

   “Fuck you.”

   “Your own brother? Gross.”

   “That’s _enough_.”

   Even without looking at him, Dean knew Cas was crackling with energy. It didn’t seem unlikely he’d blow up in a flash of light again. It was in the way his presence surpassed his physical form and spread into his surroundings—the way it literally did when he did that thing with the walls in his home, except that was calm, and this…

   This blew away the thing holding Dean down like it was no more than a leaf.

   “Are you alright?”

   “Took you long enough,” Dean muttered, not looking at his friend as he scrambled back up. “You know that thing?”

   “We have met once,” Cas said shortly. “A long time ago.”

   He didn’t look like he wanted to talk about it, which was all well, because Dean was bad enough at talking about things in calm situations. That didn’t mean he missed the bitter tone in Castiel’s voice, though. Whatever happened between the two of them, it couldn’t have been pleasant. “Is it gone?”

   “They will be back.”

   Dean didn’t doubt that for a second. Still, he didn’t say anything right away, just started walking again without any clue which direction he was going in. “That’s the kinda thing that lives here?”

   “Megare is… One of the less dangerous creatures, I believe.”

   “Great.”

   “Dean—perhaps we should—”

   “We’re not going back until I’ve found something.” Sam needed him to find something. Jess needed him to find something.

   _He_ needed _himself_ to find something.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s all going to hell anyway, son. Might as well do the right thing while there still is one.”

**Twelve.**

_Galaxy point three-twelve, planet sixteen._

   Sam frowned. That made no sense.

   He checked the translation again.

   _Galaxy point three-twelve, planet sixteen._

_Galaxy point three-twelve?_

   No one used a classification system like that. They didn’t seem to mean anything. And yet they were there, in the small journal that Jess had stolen weeks—months?—ago. Before she disappeared. Before Ruby got murdered. Before Sam had to run.

   He really wished his brother was back on Earth.

   Everything had gone to crap after Dean had left. The ship he’d been on crashed. The whole crew was pronounced dead. Dean was not dead.

_Dean was not dead._

   Even after having spoken with him several times, Sam had to keep repeating it to himself. Dean had recuperated with the help of an alien. He’d gone off with said alien to the planet he was supposed to be on all along. He was going to find out what it was they weren’t supposed to find.

   Sam wished his brother was here, but part of him also wished he’d stay away. His chances of staying alive on Earth had dropped dramatically, and they never had been that high to begin with.

   The planet was dying. Jess—Sam had no idea if Jess was alive. Dying. Dead. All he knew was one day he was waiting for her after work and she never showed up—not at their meeting place, not at their home, nowhere again since. She had to be somewhere.

   He wanted to talk to Dean, but Dean wasn’t picking up on the wavelength on which he’d last called Sam, and trying too often was dangerous. He could talk to Bobby, sure, but he didn’t want to burden his surrogate father more than he was already doing by living in his basement. Bobby deserved a calm life, at least as much as that was possible these days.

   “It’s all going to hell anyway, son,” he’d said gruffly when Sam had told him as much. “Might as well do the right thing while there still is one.”

   Bobby knew a lot of languages he’d never have to use, but the one in the journal was not one of them. Sam had had to figure this one out all by himself.

   Which meant he wasn’t at all sure if he was doing it right.

   He had no idea where the journal came from. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. A few days after Jess’ disappearance, when he’d finally accepted the fact he would have to clean the sheets someday (her scent would fade anyway, he _knew_ that), it had been there, right under the mattress on her side of the bed. A tiny book with pages that didn’t quite look like paper—at least, not what Sam remembered paper to be like. And a note in the corner of the very first page.

   _I love you._

He’d ripped that off and kept that slip of paper close to him at all times.

   She had to have known something was going to happen to her.

   The memory of Jess made him shudder, as it usually did. He wasn’t sure if that was because he was afraid for her, or because there was something eerie about her disappearance and he was missing exactly what that was.

   Ruby had seemed to be on his side. That was weird, because Ruby never seemed to be on anyone’s side. But that couldn’t be why she was dead, because then Sam would be dead, too.

   Sam gave up on the chapter he was staring at and flipped back a few pages.

   **REIGN OF LORD C.S.III  
   [4.776-4.961 S.Y.—A.G.B.]**

**Discovery of the Io-iad on Atala  
   4.784 S.Y.—A.G.B.**

**Birth of the Princes Lu’cfer & M’chal  
   4.801 S.Y.—A.G.B.**

**Lu’cfer’s banishment  
   4.926 S.Y.—A.G.B.**

   **Fall of Xa’ar  
   4.961 S.Y.—A.G.B.**

   There was more—diplomatic stuff that Sam would normally be highly interested in, but that he didn’t have the time to consider further yet. What he had to figure out first was what the hell an Io-iad was. Castiel might know, but he was roaming around another planet with Dean lightyears away without knowing what they were looking for.

   And whatever this thing was, this Io-iad, it was the thing they weren’t supposed to find. Sam was sure of it.

   He wondered if Castiel knew. It made sense—it seemed important enough. He thought he even recalled Dean mentioning Xa’ar before in connection to Castiel, but he wasn’t sure if that was an actual memory or just wishful thinking.

   Footsteps on the rickety old stairs that led to the basement Sam was held up in made him look up to see Bobby Singer with a bowl of food. “Hey, Bobby.”

   “Boy, you’re going to turn into a hunchback if you stay down here all the time.”

   “That why you brought me food?”

   “I changed my mind,” Bobby said grumpily. “Come on up. I see you’re still working in that terrible lighting, give your eyes a break.”

   “You sure it’s safe?”

   The man just rolled his eyes. Of course, Sam trusted Bobby more than anyone—except perhaps Dean—but ever since Dean’s ship crashed, and to a lesser extent throughout his life, it had become a habit to triple-check. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just the way the world worked.

   By the time he got upstairs, Bobby had already set the bowl of food on the table and had started on his own. There was something about him, though…

   “I’ve found something,” Sam said as he sat down.

   “Good or bad news?”

   “Good, I hope.”

   “We need it.”

   That only strengthened Sam’s feeling that something was wrong. “Anything on your part?”

   “How ‘bout you eat and tell me your news first?”

   “Alright,” Sam said, warily, before starting to shovel tasteless food into his mouth. “I think I know what Dean should be looking for,” he told Bobby between bites. “Well, what it’s called, anyway. _Io-iad_. Doesn’t seem to be code for anything. That’s just what it is.”

   Bobby shook his head. “Never heard of it, but I’ll see if I can figure it out. It’s a good start.” 

   There was a prolonged silence during which Sam finished his lunch. “Bobby—”

   “You know who Charlie is, Sam?”

   “Um,” Sam said.

   “Alright, no one _really_ knows who Charlie is,” Bobby admitted. “But whoever it is knows a damn lot about EGC. My best guess is they work there, or, God forbid, they’re a damn good hacker.”

   “How do you know you can trust them if they know that much?”

   “Boy,” Bobby said, and he didn’t actually roll his eyes but Sam could hear that he wanted to. “You think I would’ve just let you work in that place without someone keeping an eye out?”

   “I—what?”

   “You’re a lot like your Daddy, kid. Don’t look so offended, I don’t mean it that way. I know he wasn’t the best father you boys could’ve wished for, and he sure as hell could’ve been there more. I’m not saying I think he did what was best for his family.” Bobby pulled a face. It wasn’t for nothing that it had been him who took in Dean and Sam after their Dad went to prison and they were clearly struggling. “But he did what he thought he had to do.”

   “Right,” Sam said sarcastically.

   “After your mother disappeared, he went a bit crazy,” Bobby admitted. “I get that, but he shouldn’t have left you boys to fend for yourselves while he tried to figure out what had happened to her. Shoulda focused his attention on the family that was still here, if you ask me. But he went to prison because he was trying to keep you kids safe.”

   Sam could imagine that being John’s reasoning, solely because it sounded like him. He tried to care about it, but that bit seemed impossible, though. “If he cared so much about keeping us safe, he should have taken more care of us to begin with.”

   “I hear ya,” Bobby agreed. “Either way, after your mother died, he started digging.” He looked meaningfully at Sam, who looked away. Being compared to his father wasn’t something he cared for. “I don’t know much of what he found, or if he found anything at all. He was a secretive man, John was. But after he disappeared behind bars, I knew I had to keep an eye on you boys. I know better than to trust the establishment.”

   “So you got someone to spy on us?” Sam raised an eyebrow, not sure how to feel about this. “Bang up job they did. Jess disappeared anyway.” The words felt bitter in his mouth. He was getting sick of disappearances, of not knowing what happened to the people he cared about. Dad, Dean, Jess.

   “See,” Bobby said, “that’s the thing. I’m really sorry about your girl disappearing.” He looked at Sam from under his baseball cap, not happy, but also not as grave as he’d looked before. “But she’s been found.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hello, Dean."

**Thirteen.**

   Dean was asleep with his head in Castiel’s lap, the latter’s fingers threading carefully through his hair and a wing furled protectively around him. He hadn’t wanted to go back to their ship, because a) “We made it pretty far, Cas” (he wasn’t wrong) and b) “It’s not like it’s safer there” (he wasn’t wrong about that, either).

   That said, Castiel had the feeling there were other factors at play. Knowing Dean—he was quite sure he knew him, by now—it probably had something to do with feeling like a failure if they returned without anything tangible to show for it.

   Dean hadn’t meant to fall asleep, either, Castiel understood that much. He would have kept on going until he dropped if Castiel hadn’t outright refused, and even then it had taken a lot for Dean not to just run off on his own. The human needed sleep, though, and Castiel would watch over him in case Megare told her kin about them and they would be overrun by abominations.

   It had been surprisingly quiet so far.

   It had taken him a while to recognize Megare—when he had met them, years ago, they had looked like a short female with long, dark hair and a round face. He wasn’t sure what they’d been doing on Xa’ar, but considering what they had done for him after Samandriel… Their reasons might not have been malicious.

   He could, however, not blame Michael for believing otherwise, considering the history of their planets.

   Dean stirred in his sleep and, in doing so, pulled Castiel’s thoughts back to the present. He had to tell the man that he knew what they might be looking for. Their solar system had been running on it for centuries. Wars had been fought over it. All pointless, of course. There was enough to share—but it seemed no living creature anywhere in the universe appreciated the idea of sharing.

   That was a problem. That, and the fact that Castiel was not sure where to find it.

   He sighed. Dean stirred again.

   Castiel did not know a lot about humans, except for what he’d read (not much) and had been told by Gabriel (too much), but Dean did not seem to fit either of those descriptions. Not entirely, anyway. He thought Dean’s outward appearance probably qualified for Gabriel’s highly praised category ‘sex on legs’—although quite a lot of people from several different planets seemed to qualify for that.

   Castiel was not interested in sex on legs, but he did think Dean was very handsome. He liked the golden glow of Dean’s skin, compared to the more greyish one of his own species that they could hide as well as they could to look more similar to the various shades of golden brown in humans, but never entirely remove, not even Gabriel. He liked Dean’s hair, too—short and soft—and his eyes; a deep green that did not exist on his home planet as a natural colour.

   What he most appreciated, however, were the freckles.

   The people on Xa’ar did not have them. Dean had to teach him the word, blushing and unable to look him in the eye before unsubtly changing the topic for reasons Castiel did not understand. They were strangely mysterious, like Dean had been, albeit less crude.

   _“They’re nothing special, Cas.”_

_“They are to me.”_

   Dean had just stared at him, ears bright red, until Castiel opened his mouth again to say something and was swiftly interrupted by some question about food.

   The human, it seemed, was not used to being scrutinized that way. In that he was not different from the people Castiel knew.

   (He was similar to the people Castiel knew in many ways, except the important ones. And his home planet.)

   Castiel wondered about Earth. It had not looked dissimilar to Atala, once, or so he had been told, but from what he’d heard from Dean, not much was left of that. And yet Dean wanted to return to this broken planet, whether it would kill him or not.

   He could not blame the human. If there was a sliver of hope for Castiel’s safe stay when he returned… he would grab onto it as well. At least he had, in the past.

   He had not thought about what the past days’ events truly meant for him, not too deeply. If he ever returned, they would hunt him. He had been granted a second chance after Samandriel, because it had truly been an accident, and he had been very young at the time. Just a few years in prison—a blink in the lifespan of anyone on their planet—and social exclusion afterwards. Hurting so many people again, even if it wasn’t fatally? Whisking away a condemned criminal? His people already did not like him. His wings were ‘off’ and his grace had been used to hurt, once fatally and once deliberately. There was no hope for him on Xa’ar.

   The planet was a wasteland. It relied much on technology that Castiel used little, and living underground “like a savage” (Uriel’s words) did not do his wings any favours. It was technology that had brought them above ground, and simple evolution for it to result in larger, stronger wings than ever.

   They were the reason imprisonment was such a harsh punishment, even as short as Castiel’s had been—and then he’d followed it up by choosing a similar living arrangement once he was out.

   He had not felt like those few years were enough.

   “Cas?”

   His fingers stilled in the human’s hair. “Hello, Dean.”

   “You okay?”

   No. “Yes.”

   That did not convince Dean, but that was alright. There were plenty of explanations Castiel could give if the human asked any further which did not involve his worries about what to do after this, none of which would be lies. But Dean didn’t ask. Castiel had not really expected him to.

   “You need to sleep?”

   Yes. “No.”

   Dean frowned. “You sure?”

   “I have something to tell you.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smoke, as far as Dean knew, meant pollution, and that meant decay and death. Even if that smoke could turn itself into something that looked like a human. Maybe especially then.

**Fourteen.**

“Where the fuck do we find a _seed_?” Dean asked, dismayed and fully aware of the innuendos that sentence might bring. Thankfully Cas wasn’t the type to get innuendos, let alone make them.

   “It’s not _a_ seed, Dean. There are many.”

   “That’s not an answer.”

   Castiel frowned. “This is why I did not tell you immediately. They are… well-guarded by the people of this planet, I presume.”

   “You presume.”

   “Yes.”

   “God fuckin’ dammit, Cas.”

   Cas said nothing, just looked at his hands with a scowl, as if the lines in his palms held the answer. They’d been in Dean’s hair when he woke up. It had been nice.

   He pushed the feeling in his stomach down. Now wasn’t the time for his huge damn crush on the guy to flare up to record heights. They had an answer. Something valuable that was found and hidden on this planet, something it was possible for the people not to want others to find.

   “Can’t they—I dunno, sell it? Not keep all the good stuff for themselves? Wouldn’t that be in everyone’s interest?”

   “What would your people pay with?”

   Dean snorted. “So they sell it to your people?”

   “After decade-long wars far in the past, yes,” Cas said calmly. “Not much, but enough to sustain us.”

   That shut Dean up, even if it was just for a second. Cas was right—even if these clouds of smoke wanted to trade with them, there was nothing Earth could offer them. He wasn’t sure what it was Cas’s people paid with, but there had always been more to that wasteland planet than he’d thought. He could believe they did have something.

   “Part of their reasoning might be similar to our own,” Cas added. “They might not have wanted to catch your attention, after what you have done to your planet.”

   “ _We_ haven’t done shit,” Dean snapped.

   “Your species have. Is that not the same, to an outsider’s eyes?”

   It was impossible to argue with Cas, which made their discussions all the more infuriating. “Fine. So what now? We wander around till we find something that holds this stuff? Some kind of weird flower or something?”

   “That would be fruitless. It could be anywhere.”

   He wanted to punch the guy. It wouldn’t be difficult, either, with how close he had come to stand to Dean since he’d explained about something called “the eternal”—some kind of freakin’ _seed_ that somehow held the answer to the wealth of this planet. Dean had had to get up and walk away to punch a tree. It hadn’t been satisfying.

   “Dean,” Cas said quietly.

   “ _What_?”

   “I need you to stay calm. We may go back to the ship. If it’s unoccupied, we may try to contact Gabriel, or your brother.”

   “Like Sam knows what the hell you’re talking about.”

   “He may be able to help us come up with a plan. And it might calm you to talk to him.”

   Dean’s fingers were itching.

   Cas took them.

   He wanted to be angry about it, but it was strangely calming.

   “What if it’s not the thing? You know, whatever they don’t want us to find. I mean, a seed? Really? What the hell, man.”

   “It might still help you, back on your planet. If they grow, they are eternal—unless actively destroyed, what grows out of these seeds does not die.”

   There were a lot of things going through Dean’s head as an answer to that. He didn’t say any of them. He didn’t ask how the hell they were supposed to grow anything out of those seeds when the conditions were by no means ideal—they wouldn’t even need them otherwise. He didn’t ask why the hell these assholes kept their Io-iad shit so close when everything here, he guessed, was eternal. He didn’t ask how it worked.

   He didn’t dare to. If this wasn’t the thing they should be looking for, then there was nothing they knew of. If anything, this gave some spark of hope.

   “Yeah. Okay. Let’s go back, then.”

*

   The ship, of course, was not unoccupied.

   There was a freakin’ swarm of them—whatever you called those clouds of smoke. Most of them were a deep, dark colour, not unlike Cas’s wings except they didn’t shimmer as nicely. If he hadn’t been trying to stay quiet, Dean would’ve asked if that was the reason Cas’s people didn’t like the colour of his wings. Instead, he stared in horror at clouds picking at their ship like crows picked at dead things. They didn’t eat the ship, but they were hungry for something.

   What if they found out who they were?

   They had to have people (for lack of a better word) on Earth. It was the only thing that made sense. If they were the only things on this planet, they had to be the only things that cared whether humans plundered it—and stopped them from doing so.

   That would mean they were communicating with Earth.

   That meant that, if EGC hadn’t figured it out yet, now surely HQ had figured out someone had survived this whole ordeal.

   _Sammy._

   They’d already taken Jess for looking too cloely into things. If somehow they knew it was Dean who’d survived, Dean who was wandering around on their planet…

   And he couldn’t reach him, or Bobby. Shit, he should have just—

   Stayed with Cas, on a planet where everyone would likely want him dead? Where he could never leave the cave and would know he left the people he loved on a dying planet far away?

   Cas squeezed the hand that he was, for some reason, still holding. It didn’t help this time. Dean just clenched his jaw and nodded, like he’d just come up with a terrible plan and resolved himself to do it. He hadn’t. There was nothing they could do but look on and wait, or run into the swarm and get themselves killed. In fact, the longer he watched, the clearer it became that likely neither of them would get out of this alive.

   “Cas…”

   Cas shook his head and took a step back into the woods, pulling Dean with him. If he’d been expecting Dean to put up a fight, he didn’t look surprised when he didn’t get one.

   “They’re like insects,” Dean said when he thought they were deep enough into the woods, mostly enclosed by darkness due to the density of the trees. “Fuck, Cas, what the hell are we gonna do?” It wasn’t just not being able to talk to Sam or Gabriel, either. They might be able to figure something out for themselves. It was that the ship was their only way out.

   He didn’t know why he was expecting Cas to have an answer. He didn’t even realize he was it until he didn’t get one.

   Dean let go of his hand. It wasn’t hard to know Castiel’s laser-eyes were aimed at him, pained pinpricks of blue in the dark.

   Dean sat down, back against a tree, head in his hands. He wasn’t the type of person to just give up, and he didn’t want to now, after all he’d been through to get to this place. But at the same time… he did want to. It was too much for one person, all this bullshit. What did it matter, anyway? His parents were dead. Jess was probably dead. Sam and Bobby, they were as good as, whether they’d found out on Earth that Dean was still alive or not. He just wanted it to be over.

   “Dean,” Cas said quietly. Dean could feel him crouch down next to him. “No.”

   “There’s nowhere safe for me, Cas. And there’s no one left to be safe with.”

   “Your family is still alive, Dean. It would do you well to remember that. You should fight for them.” After a few seconds of silence, he added, “You have me.”

   “You got a home.”

   “I believe I have told you I will not be able to go back.” His voice sounded pained. “Don’t apologise again. I made this choice. I think it is worth it. But only if you do not give up. I gave up everything,” he said, a sudden strength in his tone that made Dean jump, “for you. You will not repay me like this.”

   His eyes were blazing. It was that more than anything else that made Dean nod. Cas was right. He deserved better than this—at the very least, to go out with a bang.

   “Good,” Cas said, voice and eyes soft again. He didn’t move away. If anything, he seemed to be moving closer. “One more thing.”

   “Yeah?” It came out much more breathlessly than he’d intended.

   “You are not alone. I do intend to stay with you through this.”

   “And after?” He sounded pathetic to his own ears. Dean wasn’t like this. And yet… he needed to hear it. He needed something to be sure of.

   “We’ll see about after when we get there,” Cas said. “But I wouldn’t object to staying with you.”

   “Okay.”

   “Yes?”

   “Yeah.”

   It wasn’t just an agreement. It was consent for something else. Something that involved Cas’s chapped lips on Dean’s, pressing but not forcing. It was different from the first time, when they had felt a mix of nerves and elation at what was going on around them, and at the kiss. This one was born out of fear and insecurity; it was steadying, real. The only thing they could be sure of in that moment.

   “I wouldn’t object to you staying either,” Dean muttered against Cas’s lips. He didn’t say _If we survive_. He didn’t mention any of the problems they could and probably would encounter if they tried it. Frankly, he didn’t care.

   Cas didn’t answer. He pulled Dean back in.

   Kissing an alien was strangely hot. Sure, it might have something to do with the fact that Dean hadn’t properly kissed anyone in years before Cas came along (had he ever? His brain refused to think about it, too occupied with the tongue in his mouth.), or with the fact that Cas was an _alien_. But it was more likely that it had to do with the feeling feathers stroking his sides or both their hands that had started traveling over the other’s body, or just with the fact that this was _Cas_ , and that meant something.

   “Well, that wasn’t something I ever wanted to see,” a voice drawled next to them, so unexpectedly Dean almost violently pushed Cas away. He made a face at the guy immediately, hoping it’d convey something like _not this bitch_ rather than _get away from me_. He was pretty sure Cas understood.

   “Meg.”

   “The one and only.” Even in the dark he could make out that she looked like a short, pale, brown-haired woman this time, and yet Dean knew instinctively it was the same person who had looked like a blonde woman the last time and who had worn his brother’s face. “Thought you might like this face better.” She directed that at Cas. “Though I see I need not bother, huh.”

   “What are you doing here?”

   Dean hoped at least part of the unkindness in his voice had something to do with them being broken apart like that. The other part should just be general dislike, really.

   “Tsk, Clarence, why so snappy? Was I interrupting some last-day-of-our-lives sex? Because I have some news for you: you’re not gonna die.”

   “Yeah? How d’you know?”

   “Because I’m going to help you, boy toy, stop looking at me like that. I won’t turn into your handsome little brother again, happy?” She didn’t give him the time to reply, which was just as well, because it probably wasn’t a good idea to start a fight with her after she’d just declared she’d help them. At least not until they were absolutely sure they could trust her, which Dean still _wasn’t_.

   “Alright, listen.” She shot a long look at Dean. “Not that I don’t enjoy looking at your chiselled chest, but you might want to pull your shirt back down. Great. Now, there’s a lot of them, and there’s only three of us, so we’ve got one option.”

   “Wait,” Dean said. “I need the seed.”

   She raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure you do.”

   “The Io-iad seed, Meg,” Cas said before Dean had the chance to bite back. “Earth is dying. It may be their only chance.”

   _Their,_ not _our._ Well, of course Cas wasn’t gonna stay on a dying planet. He’d just said he’d like to stay with Dean. He kept saying he couldn’t go home, but Xa’ar was an entire planet; there had to be plenty of places he could go where they wouldn’t be able to find him. Dean wouldn’t follow him, though, not as long as Earth still stood a chance. He knew that was selfish of him, wanting Cas to stick around but not wanting to leave his own planet, his own family, himself. Dean had always been selfish when it came to the people he cared about.

   It occurred to him that Meg was surprisingly quiet after hearing that news. She didn’t seem like the type to be quiet.

   “No,” she finally said. “I mean, you wanna go for that, go for it. But I’m not helping you. I owe you for getting me back home, so I’ll help you get back. Anything you do between now and then? Not my problem.”

   “That’s fair,” Cas said.

   Dean didn’t like to admit that it was, so he said nothing.

   “I’ll let you get back to whatever the hell you were doing, then. Call me when you’re ready to leave.”

   “How do you keep finding us, anyway?” Dean asked quickly, before she could dissolve into smoke and leave. He was actually a bit worried about that—if she’d found them twice, who else would?

   But she just smiled, and there was something sad in it that Dean would rather not acknowledge. “I’ll always be able to find Clarence here.”

   Then she was gone.

   Dean raised an eyebrow at Cas. Cas looked anywhere but at Dean.

   “Meg and I… have a history.”

   He was going to say something along the lines of, _I got that_ , when he realised just what kind of history Cas meant and decided, “You know what, I really don’t need to know.”

   “I think they’ve been keeping us safe,” Cas said thoughtfully. “It is… suspicious we have not run into more of them.”

   “ _They_?”

   “ _She_ , as you’ll understand them,” Cas amended. “Meg.”

   “Right. Whatever.”

   “There’s no need to be jealous, Dean.”

   “I know that,” Dean snapped. “There’s no time for this crap. We need a plan.”

   What they needed was to know where they could find what they needed. It wasn’t exactly like they could build a plan around nothing.

   “There will be a Heart Tree in this forest,” Cas said. “At—at the heart of it,” he added lamely. “They are the trees that grow out of the Io-iad, the eternal trees. There will only be one. It carries other seeds that spread around it—this is how the forest came to be. The ground is fertile, but the tree helps it along.”

   “Are these other seeds just as useful?”

   “No,” Cas admitted. “They are just that—seeds. We could bring them, and they might work in the right conditions, but with a Heart Tree already there, they actually stand a chance. But the Tree might yet hold some of those inside.”

   “I’m guessing that sounds a lot easier than it will be.”

   “Likely, the Tree will be protected.”

   “That’s what I thought.”

   “We will need sustenance,” Cas said, “And rest. We can go over this as we eat.” He did not hide the tone of distaste in his voice when he spoke of the last bits of dried food they were carrying with them. “We will need all the strength we can gather.”

   “That bad?” Dean asked. He was imagining some huge tree, glimmering with golden fruit, surrounded by a swarm of smoke like their ship. It was an uncomfortable thought, like something unnatural tainting a pure thing. He wasn’t sure if it was the visual of smoke or just his hatred for these things that did it, even if the only one he’d actually met was Meg. There was something about the things that made shivers run down his spine even from watching them at a distance; vile, corrupted things that would hurt everything they touched, even though their planet looked beautiful.

   Smoke, as far as Dean knew, meant pollution, and that meant decay and death. Even if that smoke could turn itself into something that looked like a human. Maybe especially then.

*

   Dean made Cas sleep first, because he had the feeling if he didn’t, the guy wouldn’t sleep for the second night in a row. He didn’t need as much sleep as Dean did, but he did need it.

   It felt strange to have someone so heavy leaning against his shoulder as they slept. The only one he’d ever allowed to do that was Sam, when he was still a kid. This was a guy Dean had once been sure would kill him with claws and wings and burning eyes, and now they were watching over each other as they slept.

   He kept his eyes and ears open, but allowed his fingers to run through Cas’s wings, partly opened and lying over himself and Dean like a blanket. It seemed weirdly intimate to touch them, but at the same time it felt _right_. Like Dean had always been around people with wings, around Cas, and the only new thing about this was that you weren’t normally allowed to touch someone’s wings the way you weren’t allowed to touch their hair unless they told you it was alright. He couldn’t explain it even to himself.

   That was alright, though. He didn’t have to.

*

   They were in a similar position when Dean woke up, except he was leaning against Cas instead of the other way round, and Cas was absent-mindedly rubbing circles over the back of Dean’s hand with his thumb. He decided he liked it.

   “Time to go?” he asked with yawn, more to break Cas out of his stupor than because he felt ready to.

   “Eat your last granola bar,” Cas said.

   Dean really hated granola bars. Then again, he hated most food that didn’t come from Cas’s kitchen.

   Years ago, he would’ve killed for a granola bar, or anything else that would’ve filled their stomachs. He hated how spoiled he’d become.

   “Alright,” he said. “Come on.”

   “Dean, remember—you’ll have to trust me.” They’d agreed on this: It was going to be pitch dark in the middle of the forest, where the Heart Tree probably was. Dean couldn’t see in the dark. Cas could. Cas would, therefore, go first, Dean always holding him somewhere like a child that was scared to get lost.

   He got it, but that didn’t make it any less humiliating. He didn’t wanna talk about it again. “Just, get on with it, will ya?”

   “If you’re sure.”

   “Dammit, Cas.”

*

   He hadn’t really expected the woods to grow this much darker. He hadn’t been sure it was possible. Sure, he’d still been able to see Cas at the place they stayed overnight, but it had been dark enough that he couldn’t make out the lines of his—friend’s? lover’s?—face. It didn’t get that dark on Xa’ar, the few times he’d been outside there, even though he knew the difference was that Xa’ar didn’t appear to have any trees at first sight. And it did get dark on Earth, but that was still different; a foggy kind of darkness, grey more than black, that Dean had never questioned until he knew better.

   This, though? If he didn’t see Cas’s eyes every now and then, looking back at him, he would’ve thought he’d gone blind. It was a clear darkness, pitch-black and terrifying.

   “The sun will come up soon,” Cas’s voice said from somewhere in front of him. “It will clear a little.”

   The thing was, well, ‘a little’ was a good description. It was weird—Dean had never been inside a forest before, but he felt like this couldn’t be normal. That on Earth, there would be something to see in front of him even in the middle of the night in a forest.

   But Earth was a whole different solar system, so maybe this was normal here. Didn’t mean he had to like it.

   It was quiet as they walked, their footsteps sounding like drums with nothing around them to drown it out. Cas had expected this. “We should worry about the place itself, not getting there.” Seemed like he’d been right.

   Dean just had no idea how he had to defend himself in this darkness, or how he was supposed to see the tree they were looking for at all. Maybe Cas could, but that’d leave Dean pretty useless.

   He needn’t have worried.

   By the time they got there, the morning sun had come up. It would’ve been of little help had the Tree not stood in a clearing surrounded by grass and flowers, the sun breaking through the canopy and hurting Dean’s eyes.

   It would’ve been gorgeous had it not been for the red cloud of smoke swirling around it.

   “Red,” Dean hissed, as if it meant anything to him.

   “Yes.”

   “What’s that mean?”

   “A Knight. A guardian of a Heart Tree.” He said that like he only just now remembered something. “They are particularly strong.”

   Of course they were. Things _had_ been going too easily.

   The plan was simple: Cas, by simple nature of their species, was stronger than Dean. That meant he’d stand more of a chance facing the guardian straight on, with Dean trying to figure out where to find whatever the hell he was looking for.

   It was a terrible plan. It wasn’t gonna end well. But they had to try.

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was evil. It was just protecting what was theirs, but to Dean it just felt like pure Evil, capital E.

**Fifteen.**

   It wasn’t finding the Io-iad seed that was the problem. It wasn’t even getting it out without hurting the tree, which came as a surprise to Dean. He’d been expecting something like a fruit—that he was gonna have to break it open in order to find the stuff.

   The problem was that the moment he closed his hands around them, there was a scream and he was surrounded by _red_.

   He knew to clench his hands, to not let go of what he found, but he also knew his knife was in its thigh holster. _Stupid_. He’d only been planning to let go of it for a second, to grab the seeds and switch them back out again; Io-iad in his pocket, knife in his hand. He should have seen it coming that the moment he took them out something terrible was going to happen.

   He could feel himself fall, but the pain didn’t register. Something was clawing at his face, someone was screaming—it took him ages that could be seconds to realise that both of them were him. He was no longer holding on to anything. All he could see was red.

   “Oh dear,” a voice said. He couldn’t tell where it came from, whether it was outside of him or inside his head. “Did you think your boyfriend was a sufficient distraction?”

   It was evil. It was just protecting what was theirs, but to Dean it just felt like pure Evil, capital E—pain that was everywhere at the same time, crawling underneath his skin like a painful itch that couldn’t be contained to a single spot on his body, a spark that he was sure was gonna turn into fire any second and burn him from the inside.

   _Cas._

   “Yes, you remember him,” the voice said. “He can’t help you, but don’t worry. I’ll finish him next.”

   _No, no, no._

There was no space in his head to shape any more coherent thoughts than that. It was too preoccupied with trying to block out the pain—trying to black out Dean’s consciousness even while Dean tried to hold on to it. If he lost it, he’d lose everything. He didn’t know much, at this moment, but there was an awareness that told him to hold on even to the pain because if he let go, he’d be lost.

   His hand was grappling for something, but he wasn’t quite sure himself what it was. There was a feeling of cool grass on his fingertips, though. He concentrated on that. Anything that didn’t hurt was worth focusing on. The grass was wet, the soil underneath it damp. _Dew_ , his brain told him weakly, like it mattered what it was called if it wasn’t gonna help Dean anyway. Dew wasn’t what his fingers could be looking for.

   A stabbing feeling in his chest made him heave, momentarily lost in another wave of pain. He wasn’t sure if the burning feeling had lessened or if it was burning through his synapses, killing him slowly while he felt less and less of it.

   His fingers touched something cool. Something that wasn’t naturally so.

   The knife.

   Whatever it was that was attacking Dean, it hadn’t taken his weapon from him. It probably thought he wasn’t gonna be able to wield it anyway. It wasn’t exactly _wrong_ , there. He could feel it, touch it, but wrapping his hands around it, moving his arm far enough to stab anything with it—

   “Dean.”

   _Cas._

   “ _Dean_.”

   Cas was there. Sam might still be out there somewhere, in danger but alive, not close but in need of Dean. Bobby. Jess.

   “Dean.”

   Cas’s voice kept repeating his name, like just the sound of his voice was going to save Dean. It calmed him down, if nothing else. Either he was going to die, but then he wasn’t gonna die alone; or he wasn’t, and there were people out there who didn’t want him to.

   It was a horrible thought. It shouldn’t have calmed him down at all. But it did, long enough to touch the cool material of the knife and stab in into nothingness.

   The red in his vision ebbed away to make place for blue and green again.

   “That hurt.”

   And there was the red, again, now in the shape of a woman—red hair, red lips, red nails. She looked like there would be red between her teeth when she smiled, like an animal gone viral, but they were perfectly white like a human’s would be.

   There was a hole in her clothes, in her side, but there was no red there. She didn’t bleed. She looked surprisingly calm about being stabbed, which made her all the more terrifying.

   Cas offered Dean a hand, pulling him up on shaky legs. The guy himself didn’t look very steady on his feet, either. And there was the guardian, looking like nothing could hurt her, not bothered at all that she was faced by two angry men. Of course she wasn’t. She wasn’t anything like them.

   She was a lot stronger, for one.

   Cas let go of Dean and stepped forward. Red just smiled.

   There was no time for anything. Dean could barely move as she was twirling a knife of her own between her fingers, looking straight at him.

   But Cas’s wings could.

   Before he could do so much as blink, Dean was shielded by a huge dark wing, and it was quivering in pain.

   “Cas…?”

   He shook his head ever so slightly. Dean could visibly see him growing pale, but the guy just set his jaw and looked at Red again.

   She was a cloud of smoke. Even if she looked like a woman, how could you beat a cloud of smoke?

   You don’t. You incapacitate it for long enough to run.

   Dean’s knife wasn’t made for anything more than stabbing, but he was sure they could make it work. “Cas.” There was a certainty in his voice that he hoped conveyed he had a plan, even if he couldn’t explain it out loud. The wing moved away from him, closer to its owner. Dean didn’t glance at what was wrong with it—he could imagine a knife sticking out somewhere well enough on his own. “Trust me.”

   “I do,” Cas said.

   Dean nodded, eyes focused on the figure in front of them. She was moving, he realised. Towards Cas.

   He wouldn’t let her.

   Nothing in that moment was more true than this: Dean loved Cas, and he wouldn’t let some cloud of smoke hurt him any more than it already had.

   The next moment, his knife was in her ribcage.

   Dean was seeing red again, but this time it wasn’t her—it was seeing the knife sticking out of Cas’s wing, silvery liquid running out from underneath it, and the knowledge that he wanted to kill her if only he could.

   “Cas,” Dean snapped. “Get her head.”

   He felt like she could probably dissolve into smoke any moment while he was pinning her to the ground with a flimsy knife that couldn’t kill her.

   Cas didn’t hesitate. Dean tried not to look at her head rolling away from them, no blood in sight.

   “They’ll survive,” Cas said. “We have to go. Now.”

   “The stuff—”

   “I have it. _Go_ , Dean.”

   Dean didn’t have to be told twice.

   He made his way to the forest without looking at Cas this time. It was still dark under the canopy of the trees, and it was more oppressive now—Red could appear out of the trees any moment and he wouldn’t even see it in time to do anything. So he ran. He could hear Cas behind him, crunching leaves and twigs and running into branches without stopping like Dean himself. He was breathing hard, which could mean nothing good. Dean had wondered sometimes, in the beginning, whether Cas had to breathe at all. He wanted to turn around, stop them, take care of that wing—god, that knife was _still in there_ —but at the same time he was incapable of stopping. It was probably a good thing. If he stopped now, he wouldn’t be able to start running again.

   It was directionless. He had no idea where he was going, whether he was even getting closer to the ship or further away from it. All he knew was he wanted to put as much distance between that tree and themselves as he possibly could. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Red was following them, or that she’d somehow notified the rest of whatever these things were called and they were all on the lookout for them. They didn’t stand a chance. Not against her, if she survived; nor against any freakin’ miniature storm clouds. Cas was hurt. Dean was exhausted. They only had Meg to help them, and he had no idea where she was, or if they could really trust her.

   He could feel his feet slow down without remembering he’d ordered them to. He got the feeling he hadn’t, that his body was giving up despite his brain telling it not to.

   “Keep going,” Cas said behind him. “Go as much in a straight line from here as you can.” He was out of breath. It was more terrifying than even the thought of Red pursuing them. “Run!”

   His legs felt like they were made of porridge. He couldn’t feel them, but it seemed impossible they were able to hold up his weight when all his arms and head did was grow heavier by the second, and his chest seemed to be filling up with something that might just be fear.

   Dean Winchester didn’t do fear.

   Except he did. Too much so, lately.

   Somehow, impossibly, there was light in the distance. The moment he saw it, he collapsed, hands and knees in the dirt, head hanging, chest heaving. He could hear Cas do the same next to him, but he didn’t have the strength to look up right away. His veins were burning again, from exertion as much as from whatever it was he’d been through just a few minutes ago. He felt like he was gonna be sick.

   He did get sick.

   There was barely anything in his stomach. He hadn’t realised how little he’d eaten since they landed here, but there it was, on the ground right in front of him. Liquid, bile, a few pieces of fruit and granola bars, a horribly rank smell, and a few tears he hadn’t been able to stop falling as his body heaved up what little it could.

   His arms were too shaky to keep him up anymore, so he made to sit on his ass instead. One look at Cas, though, and he thought better of it.

   Cas was on his back on the ground, wings spread out on either side of him as well as they could in a forest. One of them was leaking something Dean guessed was equal to blood. The knife was gone, but it seemed to have been ripped out as they ran, or the gash had always been bigger than Dean thought.

   “Cas?”

   Cas’ wing quivered. “It hurts, Dean.”

   He sounded almost surprised, like he’d never experienced physical pain before. Dean remembered that first time, when he had stabbed him with that screwdriver, and thought that maybe he hadn’t. Not often, anyway. Probably not like this.

   “It’ll be fine. Don’t move your wing.”

   This was something he could do: take care of hurts. Sure, he’d never healed a wing before, but how different could it be from a cut in flesh, really? Put pressure on it. Clean it. Bandage it.

   Easier said than done when all you got was the clothes on your back and whatever the forest could give you.

   Well, the clothes on his back were useful. He could rip off parts of his undershirt for a bandage; it was a bit sweaty, but at least not covered in soil like the rest of his clothes. There was some water left in his flask that he really wanted to drink right now, but his thirst could wait in favour of cleaning this wound. He could survive a few more hours without it. Cas might not, if his wound got infected.

   “Dean—”

   “Shut up.”

   “I—”

   “You’re only allowed to talk if you’re not gonna say anything melancholy and tragic, you hear me?”

   Cas shut his mouth.

   “Thank you.”

   He tried to be as quick and yet meticulous as possible. There was only so much he could do with the means that he had. They should have run in the direction of a lake so they could have cleaned it more properly, but nothing had been on Dean’s mind but _run_ , and Cas hadn’t said anything either except at the end there. The asshole had probably meant to reach the ship and nothing else on the way, anyway. Dean could see the shimmer of it through the trees from where he was sitting.

   It looked a great distance away.

   He thought he might have to tell Cas not to fall asleep, but the guy already had his eyes closed, and Dean didn’t have the energy to wake him up if he had to. He didn’t even have the energy to keep watch. It was all he could do to send a quick prayer to a God he didn’t believe in— _please don’t let them find us, please give us a few hours of peace_ —before his own eyes slid closed.

   Someone had to have heard him, though, because they weren’t killed in their sleep. Cas was sweating, but not to the point where Dean felt he had to be worried about a horrible infection. That didn’t mean he didn’t do anything in his power to keep Cas comfortable while he sweated out the pain.

   He woke up a few hours later, looking much better than he had when he’d fallen asleep. Dean smiled weakly at him.

   “Did you sleep?”

   “Yeah.” He wondered if Cas would tell him off for leaving them without any defence should something have found them, but he was pretty sure both of them knew they wouldn’t have been able to fight either way. Cas just nodded. “Alright.”

   “You feeling better?”

   “I am. Thank you. I… apologize for worrying you with my words, this morning.”

   Dean snorted. “You mean when you tried to tell me to take the Io-iad and leave you to die?”

   Cas looked away. “Yes.”

   “C’mon, man, you were hurt. It’s fine. I wouldn’t have just left you.”

   “I know,” Cas said, but even after having told each other they would like the other to stay, he didn’t sound convinced.

   “Well.” Dean was too tired to have another heart-to-heart, especially so close after their last one. He wasn’t a feelings kind of guy. He was an action kind of guy. “You ready to get the hell outta here?”

   “You make it sound like it will be easy.”

   “When’s anything been easy for us? And we’re still here.”

   Cas smiled at that.

   “Alright. Call Meg. I don’t wanna stay here a second longer than I have to.”

   “I can’t—” He shot one look at Dean’s face and decided that whatever he thought he couldn’t do, either he could after all, or he didn’t need to inform Dean about. It was probably the latter. It was probably ‘calling Meg’.

   Dean couldn’t bring himself to care as much about that as he probably should.

   He closed his eyes again.

   This time, he dreamt of insects crawling underneath his skin, of the wood going up in flames, of Cas sweating out a fever borne of infection; one scene morphing into the other. And then Cas’s glazed eyes turned from blue to hazel, his hair lightened and grew out, and it was Sam lying in front of him, not a scratch on his body but still _dead_.

   On some level, he knew he was dreaming. But on another, he was terrified that he wasn’t—Sam wasn’t here, but he might be lying somewhere like this, and Dean wouldn’t even know it. Cas had looked better after he woke up, but what did Dean know? He wasn’t human. He might still be burning up from the inside, like Dean’s skin had been, without telling him. It wasn’t that far-fetched. They were all dying—dying—maybe already dead.

   He woke up already rolling over and heaving up more bile. This time, though, Cas was there, his hand the temperature Dean remembered it had always been, rubbing circles over Dean’s back.

   This time, Dean acknowledged the tears hadn’t been forced out of him. They were his. He let them run.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Alright.” Dean straightened himself, patting the holster holding his knife. “You ready?”
> 
> “I’m ready.”
> 
> “Let’s do this.”

**Sixteen.**

   It took a long time for Meg to show up. At least, it felt like a long time; Dean thought he’d slept for a lot of it, so he wasn’t really sure, and he didn’t wanna ask Cas while she was right next to them.

   She knew he didn’t trust her. Didn’t mean he had to provide her with more proof.

   Meg was quiet as they sat waiting underneath the trees. She didn’t try to snarl or sass her way through her announcement that she was there, she just was. Dean didn’t know a lot about her, but he felt that meant something was probably wrong.

   “Meg.”

   “Dean. Clarence.” There was a crease between her eyebrows that conveyed her worry. It deepened when she looked at Cas. “What happened?”

   “Some freakin’ Knight happened,” Dean said.

   “Ah.”

   “Yeah. _Ah_.”

   “If you’re just going to mock me, you can forget about my help,” she finally snapped at Dean. “I never told you to go there, did I? You should be glad Cas was willing to get something to save your pathetic planet, ‘cause no one in their right mind would.”

   That lit a spark in Dean that had been burned out of him by the Red thing. “Come again?”

   “You ruined your planet all by yourselves. You think anyone cares to help you?” She raised an eyebrow. “You’re more stupid than I thought.”

   “Can you two please stop fighting?”

   The answer was no. Dean shut his mouth anyway. They did need her to help them get away, and even though he thought she might not leave Cas to his own devices, he couldn’t say that for sure. Not enough to keep pushing it.

   But she had just told him pretty much everyone knew about Earth. Cas’s people had known. Meg’s people knew. Who knew how many more were out there that didn’t give a damn about a whole planet dying? He had a right to be fuckin’ pissed, here.

   “Can you fight?” she asked Cas.

   “Yes.”

   _He shouldn’t_ , was the first thought that popped into Dean’s head as a reply. He didn’t say it. He wasn’t some worried mother hen, and it wasn’t like they could just let Cas trail behind them without defending himself, nor could they stay here until he was fully rested and healed. It was nothing short of a miracle they’d been given a day. They couldn’t be expected to be given a week.

   “Abaddon’s not coming after you. They’re back at the tree,” Meg said, “and that’s where they’re staying. But you can bet they informed plenty of people about what happened. If you thought that ship you left was buzzing before…” She trailed off, but it wasn’t really necessary to say more anyway.

   Red—Abaddon—had survived. He’d known that would happen, but he had a strange visual of a headless body crawling toward its severed part and screwing it back on like there had just been a loose bolt to fix. It was a creepy idea until he realised that both halves of the body had probably just gone up in red smoke and rejoined each other.

   He wasn’t sure if that was any better, though.

   “Any other ships we can take?”

   Meg raised her eyebrows. “You don’t think they’ve thought of that, too?”

   He’d hoped not, anyway, but her judging look said enough. “Alright, fine. So what do we do?”

   “We find you a place to hide.”

   “We— _what_?”

   That was her plan: get them a safe hiding place. They didn’t have anything else, and they needed a cover if things were gonna go wrong or someone was gonna find them before they went and tried to get their ship back. It made sense; Dean just wasn’t willing to admit that.

   It was a literal hole in the ground, in the end, covered by a net of twigs and leaves and vines that they could pull over it that would make them invisible—hopefully—and allowed anyone in a humanoid shape to walk over them without noticing it. Well, that’s what they hoped for. Dean was pretty sure anyone would notice the difference between real, solid ground and this thing, but it was the best they had.

   It was small, dark, and damp, and he didn’t like it. He liked cuddling up to Cas well enough (don’t tell anyone), but not like this, forced into a cramped space with no other choice.

   “I don’t care if you like it,” Meg said. “You’re gonna have to force your knees to finally become friends and deal with it.”

   “You shut your mouth,” Dean snapped, almost unconsciously shifting his legs in such a way that they looked less bowed.

   Cas just rolled his eyes. “I’m glad you two could stop bickering for long enough to get this done, but we still need a plan.”

   At this point, Dean wanted to just run straight through the mass of smoke, knives slashing, guns blazing (if only they had any), any hope for the best. He knew that wasn’t actually a viable idea, though, so he just nodded and sat down at the edge of their hideaway. “You got any friends that feel like helping out?”

   Meg huffed. “Of course not. We have a history of war with Cas’s people, and nobody’s very keen on _you_. We all know you’d try to take over any other planet if you thought it could save you. You can count yourself lucky for having little old me, Stormtrooper.”

   Dean didn’t. He also didn’t know what a Stormtrooper was, but that was a question for another time.

   “I know you just wanna go ahead without thinking,” she said. “Just so you know, I’m not sacrificing myself for that.”

   He didn’t think she would. He wouldn’t even expect her to. “I wasn’t going to do that.”

   “Alright. Then—” She stopped talking abruptly. “Get in there. Now.”

   Neither of them argued.

   “Megare. We’ve been looking for you.”

   “You’ve found me.”

   “So it would seem. What are you doing here, all alone in the woods when your people need you?”

   “Gal can’t have some alone time every now and then? I happen to like this form, you know. Some places can make you all… tingly.”

   Dean tried very hard not to pull a face. Judging by the invisible one’s voice, he wasn’t the only one. “I’ll take your word for it. Now, if you’d follow me. We need everyone to find these intruders on our planet.”

   Had it worked? Were they leaving without realising Dean and Cas were sitting right under their feet? He didn’t believe it. That wasn’t how things worked in Dean’s life.

   He heard only one pair of footsteps, but that didn’t mean anything. Meg was in a humanoid form, but this other person might not be. Or they might, and they were still standing there, waiting for something to happen. For someone to come out of their hiding place.

   Whoever this person was, they trusted Meg about as much as Dean did. He wondered what that meant for any of them.

   This was horrible. This was worse, almost, than being attacked by Red and her burning smoke, because then at least it was because he was doing something. Here, sitting and waiting till they were found? Dean would just as soon just show them where he was. He wasn’t itching for a fight, not right now, but he was the last person to shy away from one if it came down to it. If he couldn’t avoid them, he could at least try to beat them.

   His fingers twitched.

   “No,” Cas breathed in his ear, as if he could read Dean’s thoughts. “Not yet.”

   _Not while they’re expecting us like this,_ Dean was pretty sure he meant. It was a good thought. Didn’t stop him from wanting to get out, though.

   Had they taken Meg to the ship? Was she free among them? He thought it might work in their favour; they might have planned to do things that way if this new thing hadn’t showed up. Now they could wait for her to have a chance to get away again, but she probably wouldn’t get it. If Meg was on their side, she knew that, too. If she wasn’t, she was gonna pretend it was true.

   Guns blazing might be their only way in whether they liked it or not.

   Well. Cas probably didn’t. Dean couldn’t say he minded. He wasn’t itching for a fight, but he was itching to get back home, and if a fight was his only chance of getting there, he sure as hell wasn’t gonna avoid it.

   They waited a few more minutes in silence until Cas said, quietly, “They seem to be gone.”

   “Good. Fuck, I can’t breathe.”

   He was sure Cas was judging him harshly for immediately jumping out of their hiding place like the smokey creatures had hoped he would only moments earlier. “Cas, I think we gotta just… Go.”

   “I agree.”

   This was a surprise to Dean. He’d been expecting Cas to at least try to be sensible. “You do?”

   “They know we are somewhere around here. They do not trust Meg. They will just become more organised with time, and we do not want to be stuck here for long enough for that to happen.”

   “Alright.” Dean straightened himself, patting the holster holding his knife. “You ready?”

   “I’m ready.”

   “Let’s do this.”

*

   He knew right away that it was a mistake.

   He’d known it from the minute they decided to just go for it. Cas knew it, too, he was sure of that.

   Dean was tired. He was tired of all this shit happening to them. He was dragging them on a suicide mission, and Cas was willingly going into it with him.

   He’d felt sure one or both of them were going to die several times since the crash, but this time? There was no escaping it. The best they could hope for was that at least one of them would make it, that the seeds would grow on Earth, that the people back there could build something and _live_.

   “We can still go back.”

   “No,” Cas said. “We cannot.”

   No, they couldn’t. Even if no one had seen them yet, they were both too restless, both too exhausted, too ready for this to end one way or another. It was impossible that they’d only been here for a few days, but it felt longer than the months he’d spent on Xa’ar in Cas’s home.

   Dean felt a stab of regret at that thought, but he ignored it. Cas had come of his own volition. He didn’t want to hear Dean’s apologies. He wanted this to be over, one way or another, and Dean couldn’t blame him for that. “Okay.”

   There were a lot of the things—a lot of the smoke. The moment they set foot outside the forest it was surrounding them, impossible to see where one of the things ended and another began. Dean didn’t have time to be grossed out with that. He remembered too well the feeling of being attacked by Red, only a day or two ago; he didn’t feel like a repeat experience if he could help it at all.

   The one knife wasn’t enough, but it was all he had. Cas wasn’t armed with much more. Weapons were hard to find on Xa’ar; it wasn’t like they could’ve stocked the ship with it even if they’d had more time after Dean’s trial. They were gonna have to do with this, and it wasn’t gonna be enough.

   Dean didn’t care. He was gonna take as many of these fuckers down with him, and make a way for Cas to get to the ship and get the hell outta here.

   Trying to fight clouds of smoke was like slashing around blindly. He could see where the things were, but it felt pointless to aim at it. They could be hurt in their smokey forms, he knew that—he’d seen that—but there was no obvious place to stab, no sign that said ‘here’s the heart, go for this!’, nothing except Dean’s arm swinging wildly with a sharp object in his hand hoping to lethally hurt as many as he could without having a clue what he was doing.

   It was working, too. There were nails scraping his skin, drawing blood, screams in his ears, but nothing that hurt him as cripplingly as Red had done. It made him suspicious how easy it felt even if his stabbing seemed to do about as much damage to them as they were doing to him. He had no clue where Cas was, but he hadn’t heard him cry out or heard any other sounds that might suggest he was hurt or dying, so Dean took that to mean his friend was alive and kicking. God, he hoped he was.

   “I’d stop that, if I were you.”

   That was the voice that had been talking to Meg, the voice of some smarmy guy who sounded like he thought himself better than everyone else. And he was, apparently, because Dean was no longer surrounded so closely. They were making way so he could see a short guy in a black suit, smiling unpleasantly at him, and Cas, a short distance away, looking hassled but not hurt any more than he’d been.

   “Who’re you?”

   “Name’s Crowley, nice to meet you. Or it would be, if you weren’t hurting my people.” He kept his tone pleasant, but it sent shivers down Dean’s spine. The expression in the guy’s eyes was one that promised a world of pain. “Now, you can either come with us, quietly.” He smiled, and it reminded Dean of pictures of sharks he’d seen in school once. “Or I’ll set my pet on you.”

   “Your _pet_?” Dean asked incredulously.

   It was a dog. No—it was a _hound_ , growling at Dean like it hadn’t eaten in days and Dean looked like the tastiest stew in the world. It was possible, Dean thought, that that was exactly the case.

   “Dean,” Cas said, inching closer. “Be careful.”

   “You saying I should trust this guy?” It was rhetorical more than a real question. Dean already knew they couldn’t trust the guy, not with that expression on his face. Cas knew more about these people than he did; he had to know, too.

   “That’s exactly what I’m saying you _shouldn’t_ do,” Cas muttered.

   “Thought as much.”

   Crowley raised an eyebrow. “I can hear you, you know.”

   “I don’t care.”

   Where was Meg? Wasn’t she supposed to be around here somewhere? Wasn’t she supposed to _help them_? He’d never really expected her to, but not seeing her there when she might be their best chance…

   One of the smoky things broke free.

   It was going straight for Crowley.

   Dean didn’t have to be told to run this time. He knew the exact moment he was supposed to start moving, and he did, Cas right next to him, a straight line toward the ship. They were given only a few seconds—a moment in which everyone was frozen in shock—and then things would start getting in motion again, fast.

   He wasn’t wrong, except for one thing: The few seconds lasted a lot shorter in real life than they did in his head.

   There were jaws around his ankle.

   He couldn’t help crying out, even if it made Cas stop and turn when he should keep running. These were teeth like Dean had never seen them before, let alone felt; huge and sharp and with a force behind them he could barely comprehend. Claws, too. Everything about this beast was sharp, and Dean knew now that he had never known real pain until he arrived on this planet. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

   “Cas!” He was yelling for him to get in the damn ship, not move closer towards Dean, eyes wide in a fear that had nothing to do with his own life. “Cas—I—leave—!”

   Cas was coming closer. So was the beast’s claw.

   “Cas, no!”

   “Dean!”

   It was over, then.

   Those claws were too long, too sharp, too precise to belong to an animal and yet too vicious to belong to a man, ripping through Dean’s shirt and into his flesh without a care for anything but the taste of the meat underneath. Dean shot a look at the woods where they looked innocent and beautiful only a few feet away. He didn’t want the last thing he saw to be the foaming mouth of a shadow hound, and he didn’t want it to be Cas’s terrified eyes.

   “Dean!”

   He could hear Cas’s voice, but he couldn’t see him even if he did move his gaze. It wasn’t like Red, when he knew what was clouding his vision. Well, he knew what was happening, but there wasn’t anything in particular making it difficult to see. The black at the edges of his vision had nothing to do with smoke and everything with that _thing_ currently ripping into him. He could feel blood welling up where its claws had been, he could feel the searing pain ebbing away like there was nothing wrong with him, he could see everything around him but in such a blur that it hardly registered what was what. He was dying. There was no amount of envisioning Cas’s or Sam’s face that could pull him back this time, because this creature wasn’t trying to break his mind. It was trying to break his body, and it was succeeding. He was sure by now his innards were on the outside.

   There was a blinding light and a lot of sounds that blurred together in Dean’s mind. He knew it was blinding because he could see it through the darkness that was his eyelids, as vague as it was. Huh. Maybe that light at the end of the tunnel was real after all.

   Then, nothing.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re not tainted. You’re tired, and you still feelguilty, but your Grace isn’t any weaker because you used it to hurt anyone, even if you meant to, alright? Sometimes it’s the intention that matters, okay? Now focus.”

**Seventeen.**

Castiel hadn’t meant to use his grace again. Not for anything.

   He wasn’t sure Dean understood. Using his grace to hurt others—it hurt him, not only emotionally, but physically. It felt like it tainted his grace, each and every time, until the shine would eventually wash of and it would just be a dull grey that couldn’t be used for anything good at all anymore because it didn’t remember how. It was _heavy_ inside him, like there was liquid lead coursing through him.

   And yet he’d done it again, used it to hurt others.

   It didn’t matter that it was used in defence. It was also anger and hate, tainting him from the inside. It was the darkest reason of all. He had never used his grace for such a vile thing. It had been for revenge.

   He wasn’t sure if it had been enough to burn them all out. Probably not. It had, however, been enough to get Dean into the ship and get, as he would say, ‘the hell outta there’.

   But he hadn’t said it.

   Dean was alive, but he was dying, and Castiel didn’t think there was anything that he could do. He could use his grace to heal, but not so soon after everything he had to burn out any and all Atalans he could reach. He didn’t know if he’d be able to anymore at all, after this, or if he’d just hurt Dean more.

   “You still there, bucko?”

   He’d forgotten he’d called Gabriel in a panic the moment they were up in the sky. All he really wanted was to go back and let his brother fix this for him, but he knew he couldn’t. There might already be problems flaring up again between their planets after this; if he went back, there was no doubt he’d be doubly hunted now.

   It was all he could hope that the ship would make it all the way to Earth, and that they wouldn’t follow them. Though he was sure they wouldn’t—Dean thought Atala had people on Earth. They would have those people go after them instead.

   There was no safe space for them anywhere. They’d have to pick the lesser of two evils. Castiel thought it was more likely to be Earth, if they made it there.

   “I’m still here,” he said hoarsely.

   “Cassie, I know you have no energy left right now, but if you wanna save your guy, you’re gonna have to get over it, okay?”

   “I can’t—”

   “You’re not tainted. You’re tired, and you still feel guilty about Samandriel, but your Grace isn’t any weaker because you used it to hurt anyone, even if you meant to, alright? That’s all in your head, Cas. I know who put it there. I also know it doesn’t matter to you what your reasons were for doing anything like that, but sometimes it’s the intention that matters, okay? Now focus.”

   “I can’t,” he choked out again, but this time he wasn’t sure if there was anything following those words.

   “Don’t talk bullshit to me. If you thought you couldn’t, you wouldn’t have called me.”

   Gabriel knew him very well.

   “Then help me.”

   “Did you clean and bind the wounds? Like you would if it had to heal entirely on its own?”

   Cas looked over at Dean. He’d removed the shreds that had been the human’s clothes, except for his underwear, and replaced them with bandages Dean’s blood was already seeping through. “Yes.”

   “Good. Leave them on. You’re not gonna be able to do this entirely by yourself, but you might get far enough that his body can take over from there, you hear?”

   “Yes. I hear.”

   “Alright. Listen to me. Close your eyes.”

   “What?”

   “Close your eyes. Like you’re meditating. I know that’s a thing you do, and I want you to do it now. Close your eyes and think of an orb.”

   “An orb,” Castiel repeated sceptically.

   “That’s what I said, yeah. Just a white one, shiny if you want. As long as it’s just an orb and it’s in contrast with the darkness around you.”

   He took a minute to make sure he was imagining exactly what Gabriel meant. It felt pointless, but he knew his brother, ever the trickster, wouldn’t prank him at a time like this. Not when so much was on the line. “I have it.”

   “Perfect. Now imagine it glowing.”

   “Gabriel—”

   “Stop whining, Cassie.”

   “Alright. What then?”

   “Make it brighter. But slowly. Make it as bright as you can.”

   It didn’t make any sense. And yet, as he envisioned it, Castiel started to understand what Gabriel’s thoughts were here. The orb was him. No—the darkness was him. The orb was the Grace inside him. If he could deepen the darkness and brighten the glow… If he could pull the Grace from the deepest corners of himself… If he could gather all that was left right at this moment…

   “I think I understand.”

   He could almost hear Gabriel smile even though there wasn’t anything to smile about. “When it’s as bright as you can imagine it,” he said, “get to your boyfriend. Try to do it blindly. Don’t let go of that vision.”

   Castiel was right next to Dean, so that wasn’t too hard.

   “You’re a natural healer, Cassie. You know what to do. Just imagine the brightness dimming again, but as you pour it into him.” Gabriel snorted, but didn’t make the joke Castiel was expecting him to make. “Good luck.”

   The darkness in his vision didn’t go back to the partial darkness that you saw when you just closed your eyes. It stayed as deep as he’d imagined it; it just became more, as the brightness of his Grace became less. It was draining—it drained him as much as it drained the orb he was still envisioning—but it was a comforting darkness, one that told him, _You’re doing all you can. He might be okay yet._

   “Leave that orb you started with, Cas. You’ll wanna replenish it sometime.”

   He wasn’t too sure about that, not if it made a difference to whether Dean lived or not. But, he thought, it wouldn’t. He could feel Dean’s wounds knitting closed underneath his bandages, his intestines fixing themselves. If he unwrapped the bandages now, it would look like Dean had been cut with a knife, not deeply, but painfully enough. It wasn’t enough to fix him; but it was enough for his body to do the rest.

   “I think… I did it.”

   “Told ya you could still do good things with that Grace of yours.”

   “Thank you, Gabriel.”

   “Don’t thank me yet. Wait till your boy toy actually wakes up.”

   “I think he will.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Calling from Moondoor,” a feminine voice said, sounding unsure and somewhat hesitant. “Please accept my call.”

**Eighteen.**

   When Dean woke up the first time, it was only for a few seconds. He tried to open his eyes, decided that the light was too blinding, and closed them again.

   The second time wasn’t much better.

   He hadn’t been awake long enough last time to register the pain in his side and stomach, and he was grateful for that. It was throbbing, like a wound that had closed but wasn’t even close to being fully healed yet. His fingers just hit gauze when he reached for the painful area.

   He had no idea what had happened for him to get to this.

   The third time was better, though not by much.

   Cas was at his side, though it took a while for Dean’s brain to register what he was doing: changing his bandages. He tried to put his hand on his sides before Cas noticed him, but there wasn’t much to feel—scabs, long like knife slashes except there were so many of them—and he didn’t have the energy to move his head up to look.

   “You’re awake.”

   He would’ve liked to say something clever to that, but a) his head felt too foggy, and b) there was no way he could make any sound come out of his dry throat that wasn’t a rasp.

   “Oh,” Cas said, grasping for some wet cloth and wetting Dean’s cracked lips before he gave him any actual water. “I apologize. Please do not touch your wounds again, they are still healing.”

   He wondered if he dared ask what ‘still’ meant. How long had it been since he’d acquired them? How?

   He shot a look at Cas’s face and decided that he didn’t dare to learn the answers.

   The fourth time, he actually stayed awake for long enough to ask questions.

   “Cas? Where are we?” Four short words that hurt his throat and, going by the look on his face, hurt something in Cas.

   “On our way home.”

   “Wha’s home?”

   “Earth, Dean.”

   He perked up at that. If he could’ve sat up, he would have, but the slightest strain and the muscles in his stomach started screaming at him to stop. “Ship’s gonna make it that far?”

   “I very much hope so,” Cas said. “Gabriel has managed it, decades ago, so we might, too.”

   He was keeping his replies short and to the point, like he knew Dean wasn’t gonna ask too many questions just yet and didn’t voluntarily want to provide him with the answer. Dean hated it, but he didn’t have the energy to ask too many questions, let alone start an argument. “’Kay.”

   “How are you feeling?”

   He snorted, which hurt again. “Shit.”

   “I’m sorry.”

   That almost didn’t seem worthy of a reply, since despite the hole in his memory, Dean was pretty sure Cas wasn’t the one that had apparently slashed him open. He just raised an eyebrow.

   “For not being able to heal you.”

   “Think tha’s wha you’re doing righ’ now, Cas.”

   “You’re starting to slur. Please go back to rest.”

   After that, it got better. He stayed awake longer, his throat was hurting less with the water and tea Cas made him drink despite his initial protests. He still didn’t like it, but at least it was working, so he stopped complaining about it as much.

   He’d almost been killed. Actually, really, been on the verge of dying. Cas didn’t say it out loud, but Dean was sure when he mentioned the depth of the gashes in his stomach, he must’ve been able to see things from the outside that were supposed to stay inside Dean at all cost. And Cas had saved him with the last energy he had, and then he’d _apologized_ for not having been able to heal him further.

   Dean just asked, jokingly, if he couldn’t have healed him that fast the first time they met.

   “I barely knew you, Dean, and it takes a lot out of me to heal anyone so directly. The medicine did a well enough job.” It was said in clipped tones that Dean took to mean that Cas either hadn’t understood it was only partly meant as a serious question, or he’d also been thinking about it lately.

   It didn’t matter to Dean. Just the fact that he was still alive and kickin’ was a miracle in itself, and that was all Cas.

   “That medicine,” Dean said, remembering how reluctant Cas had been to give that to him in the beginning as well. “Is that… Y’know.”

   “It is made using Grace, yes.”

   “Thanks,” Dean said sincerely, “for, y’know. Wasting that on me.”

   “Don’t be stupid, Dean, I could never waste anything on you.”

*

   “What happened to Meg?” Dean asked after a while. He wasn’t sure if it was a question Cas wanted to answer, or if he wanted to think about it at all, but for some reason, Dean really wanted to know.

   “Meg died. Before I—”

   _Before I wiped out the rest of them._

   Dean didn’t care for ‘the rest of them’ at all. They’d killed Meg, and they’d almost killed him, and Cas had been angry and upset and all alone. Dean didn’t feel a lick of pity for any of the things.

   It was clear that Cas felt guilty, though. He’d felt guilty after killing his brother by accident, and he’d felt guilty after the court, and now this—Dean felt a bit bad about it, because now two of those three were because of him, and Cas could say something about it being his own choice however often he wanted, but Dean was never not going to feel like it was somehow his fault. If he hadn’t crash landed in Castiel’s backyard, none of this would have happened.

   Sure, the crash wasn’t his fault, but everything that had happened afterwards? Yeah. Because Dean was a stubborn ass.

   “So,” he said awkwardly. He was finally sitting up by now, even if it was still uncomfortable; lying down all the time really wasn’t all that great, especially since Cas had made him a bed right next to all the control panels so he could keep an eye on things, call Gabriel, and make sure Dean was alright all at the same time. The thought had been nice at first. Dean got that it had been touch and go for a while there. It was about time for him to get moving again, though, even if it was just between an actual bedroom and this room.

   “Home, huh.”

   “Earth,” Cas agreed.

   “I wasn’t sure…”

   “If I’d come with you?” Cas frowned. “I thought we had agreed to… stay together.”

   “Yeah. I just… thought maybe you’d want to go back to your own planet. Like, sure, you said that you couldn’t go back, but a planet is big.”

   “I would have nothing at all left if I went to live on the other side of the planet. No house. No one,” Cas said. “Now, I have you.”

   Dammit, that went into the sappy kind of territory that Dean hated. “Awesome. You tried to contact Sam yet?”

   The frown deepened. “I have. He has yet to pick up.”

   Dean had to keep telling himself that didn’t mean anything. Sam could’ve lost his communicator. Something could be going on that didn’t involve death and destruction.

   Cas didn’t say anything like _I’m sure he’s fine,_ and Dean was grateful for that.

*

   Despite this being a faster, more advanced ship than the one Dean had arrived in, it would still take a while for them to arrive anywhere near Earth. It was a horrible wait. There was little to do, and while they hadn’t been doing a lot back at Cas’s, either—except waiting for Dean to recuperate, because that was, apparently, all he did these days—at least that had been calm. This was… loaded. Fearful. Nerve-wracking.

   It was both a relief and a shock when their ship’s communication system started crackling. More so when Cas announced that it wasn’t from any frequency that had called it before.

   “Let’s pick up anyway,” Dean said, because if nothing else, at least it would tell them something, _anything_ , about what was going on somewhere in the galaxy. Out of the whole mess that had been the past months, this waiting without knowing had to be the worst.

   Cas accepted the call.

   “Calling from Moondoor,” a feminine voice said, sounding unsure and somewhat hesitant. “Please accept my call.”

   It was meant for Dean. He knew that code. “Charlie?”

   The line stayed quiet.

   “Queen of Moondoor?” Dean quickly rectified his mistake.

   She sighed in relief. “Oh, thank fuck, I was so scared some creep would pick up.”

   “Why are you calling?”

   He’d met her while working on a ship, once; he for the mechanics, she for the tech. She’d told him her name and a secret: She dreamt of a different, better place, with people and creatures and things that no longer existed on Earth or never had. She called it Moondoor.

   Dean hadn’t known what to do with that information, but she’d told him that if he ever needed her, he’d need that information. At the time, it hadn’t made sense. It still didn’t make sense. He assumed she’d thought he knew something which he didn’t, or that at least he’d be able to find out. He never had.

   “Your brother is here. And his girlfriend, too. And… some other people.”

   “ _Sammy_? Where’s _here_? Who are ‘other people’?”

   “I can’t say too much. This is probably safe, but we’re not taking chances. I’m gonna send you guys some coordinates, I need you to follow them, alright? It should be far enough away from the Centre to land without anyone directly noticing you, and far enough away from us that they won’t be able to track us down easily once they’ve found out an unknown ship has landed on Earth. Let me know when you’re expected to arrive. Oh, and pack up anything that could be useful. You know how to build board computers, so I expect you to know what’s important.”

   “Charlie—”

   But she’d already hung up.

   Castiel stared at him in confusion. Dean stared back, trying to convey with his eyes that he had really no idea what was going on, either. “I think we should trust her,” he said, knowing his voice sounded a little too hesitant to be convincing. The thing was, they hadn’t really thought through what would happen after they escaped Atala. Dean wasn’t sure if he was more disappointed with himself, or pissed off.

   “Alright.”

   Cas didn’t trust easily. But he trusted Dean, and they didn’t have a whole lot of other options. They were gonna have to land somewhere in the desert anyway, might as well land where Charlie was sending them.

   The call made the waiting worse, though. He kept going over it in his head, trying to figure out the meaning of it, but all it had really told him was that Sam and Jess were both alive, and something big was probably happening. And they were about to get pulled straight into it.

   He didn’t mind that. Tired as he was, Dean didn’t think he could just sit this one out. He felt like he’d been in the middle of this for so long, he had to see it finished, or die trying. Though it might be nice not to nearly get himself killed this time around.

   He’d never thought he would start thinking of death so lightly.

   “Hey—Cas?” He felt like an asshole for not asking this much sooner. “How’s your wing?”

   “Fine.”

   “No, it ain’t.”

   “Why do you ask if you already know the answer?”

   “Because I know you’re lying, or you would’ve given me a proper answer. Look, I’m sorry for… not asking.” _Forgetting about it_ , was more like it. “I should’ve. Let me take a look.”

   “It will never be as it was,” Cas said, lowering his wing so it ended up on Dean’s lap. “But it no longer hurts. It was not badly infected, but they did hit an important artery.”

   “Shit, Cas, I’m sorry,” Dean muttered, stroking his fingers through Cas’s wing as if that’d make it any better. “I thought—if you could heal me—”

   “It does not work like that. It cost me a lot of effort to heal you, Dean. It cost me all the Grace I could call upon at that moment, and even then you were only healed enough for your body to take over the process. Contrary to popular belief, Grace is not made for miracles. I prefer to save it for when it’s truly necessary.”

   “I’d call me sitting up here right now pretty much a miracle, Cas. And if you’re in pain—”

   “You understand my meaning.”

   “Yeah, and I disagree.”

   Cas sighed, but didn’t argue any further. He leaned back into Dean’s touch. “This is nice.”

   Dean smiled. “I’m glad.” He ran his fingers further up, almost to the joints of Cas’s wing, which made Cas shiver in a way Dean had not seen coming. “Huh. That’s nice too, is it.”

   “Keep doing that.”

   Yeah, he could do that. “What’s that feel like?”

   Cas looked away, and it was apparent that he was embarrassed. “Pleasant.”

   Dean snorted, because it seemed to him like it was a bit more than just ‘pleasant’.  Still, if Cas didn’t wanna explain, he wasn’t going to push it. Maybe if this thing between them lasted. As it was, he just wanted to enjoy feeling surprisingly safe, before they were gonna land on his home and they couldn’t feel like this again for a long time. “Pleasant, hm?” he smirked, pressing his fingers back upwards.

   “Dean,” Cas groaned. “You might want to… not keep doing that.”

   “Why’s that?” He didn’t stop, but he did ease up a little, not entirely sure if this was some roundabout way of Cas telling him he wanted him to stop.

   “It’s—ah—very sensitive.”

   “You want me to stop?”

   “Don’t stop,” Cas said quickly. “Just… perhaps… a bit further from the glands.”

   “Alright, no worries.”

   “Thank you, Dean.” They were quiet for a while, but then Cas continued, “I enjoy this. I do.”

   “You don’t gotta explain yourself to me, man.”

   “I just—my glands give me a kind of pleasure I cannot explain in the words of your language.” He sounded hesitant, like he wasn’t sure if he should continue. Like he thought Dean would jump away from him any minute. “The act of touching them is very intimate.”

   “Okay,” was all Dean said.

   “I do not want to cause you unease,” he continued. “And even if it does not, I do not want this to feel like a _final day_ type of act.”

   “I can’t promise you either of those things,” Dean said. “Not gonna lie, if—y’know. I can’t promise you that wouldn’t weird me out.”

   “Because I look like a man.”

   “Because you look like an alien.” Dean snorted. “ _Wings_ , man. Not something I’m used to, here. But if you’d be willing to, y’know, give this a shot sometime?” He looked away. Surely he wasn’t phrasing this properly? He’d never had any conversation like this before. His intimate moments were limited to people he didn’t want to be reminded of, and a few girls who had given their consent quite enthusiastically. He’d never discussed this without actually wanting to go down on that person right away. “Sometime when it’s not a final day type of act? I think I would… yeah. Be okay with that.”

   “Alright,” said Cas.

   “Alright,” said Dean, but it came out mostly like a question.

   “Alright. If it does not feel like a final day type of act, and you are sure then—I would like to try that with you, too.”

   “Okay,” Dean said.

   Cas just huffed a laugh and leaned further into him.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody else just stared at him. Dean was sure they were only realising now just what they were dealing with—something that wasn’t human.

**Nineteen.**

   Their landing went smoothly, and the moment they left the ship, armed with their knives and wearing clean suits, Charlie was there. For a second, Dean thought it was the tree guardian, but then he realised the woman’s hair was too short and they were, finally, back on Earth. Home soil. He could kiss it, right now, if that wouldn’t look stupid as hell.

   “Charlie.”

   “Dean. Good to see you. Told you you’d need that information, someday. Just thought you’d use it sooner.”

   “Come again?”

   “I’ll explain in a bit. Hi, you must be Castiel.” She smiled. “Your wings are _awesome_.”

   That was all she said before turning around and walking away, leaving them with no choice but to follow her.

   It felt like miles to Dean’s bruised ribs before she said, “We go underground here.” She shot a look at Cas’s wings and told him apologetically, “Sorry ‘bout that.”

   “I can handle it,” Cas said.

   And on they went, through an underground maze that Dean was sure he would never again find his way out of. This could be a prison for all he knew, and it would be too late to run now. That didn’t mean he wasn’t seriously contemplating it by the time Charlie finally said, “We’re here.”

   It looked like a computer lab.

   “Welcome,” she said dramatically, “to la Résistance.”

   Dean raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

   “You’re more serious than I thought you’d be. Anyway—”

   “Dean!”

   “—I thought before anything else, you might wanna see your brother.”

   “Sam? Holy shit, man. It’s good to see you.” He almost said something stupid like _you’ve grown_ , which made no sense because Sam was an adult, he wasn’t growing any taller. He did look older, though—stress and worry and the fact that even more months must’ve gone by here than for Dean. He didn’t want to ask about it.

   Sam pulled him into a hug. “I can’t believe you’re alive,” he said, almost in a whisper like none of the others were allowed to hear it.

   “Hey, we talked.”

   “Yeah, but…” Sam let go again, eyes not letting go of his brother as if he were afraid that Dean would be gone if he looked away for just a moment. “I don’t know what’s out there, Dean, not really. I never knew if you’d call again. You could be talking to me one moment and get attacked by something the next, and I’d never know.” He shook his head and finally looked away, at Cas this time, who immediately got pulled into a hug as well and stood awkwardly still until Dean said, “You’re supposed to hug back, Cas.”

   “Thank you,” Sam said. “For keeping my brother safe.”

   “I would say it was no bother, but your brother does have a tendency to walk straight into trouble.”

   Sam snorted and let go. He was on the verge of speaking again when suddenly his eye was caught by something. “Holy shit—are those wings?”

   Cas let them gush over _“A real life alien!”_ for a while, Charlie and Sam. Jess was there, too, but she hung back a bit to talk to Dean instead, noticing his discomfort at the situation. They’d found out some stuff, she said, after digging deep. A journal with important information that she hadn’t been able to decipher before they locked her up in hopes to keep Sam in check (yeah right, as if anyone ever could) and get information out of her. Jess was stronger than she looked, though. She admitted she did very nearly blurt out some very dangerous things, but the thought of what could happen to Sam if she did had pulled her through without giving anything away.

   Dean would have hugged her tight right then, but this was the first time they properly met without prison bars or lightyears between them, so he refrained.

   She’d left the journal for Sam to find, and he’d managed to crack the code while he was staying in Bobby’s basement before coming here. They’d learned there was something valuable. They’d wanted to convey it to Dean and Cas, but they hadn’t been able to reach them, and had been too scared to try too often.

   “We got it,” Dean said. “I—We’ll tell everyone in a minute.” He looked at Cas, who was starting to look increasingly uncomfortable at being scrutinised by three strangers. “Hey, guys, c’mon. We got more important stuff to talk about, okay?”

   “He’s right,” Cas said, looking relieved. “I believe there is much to discuss.”

   There was. It took them hours to get it all on the table, and that was leaving out a few things—like kissing Cas, or the fact that Dean had actually nearly died right before they got back. This was all big enough without everybody worrying about that. He felt fine now, anyway—not in top condition, but good enough.

   It was just the five of them here, but according to Charlie, there were more people in the underground system than she probably even knew about. Closest to them was a group of women who Charlie kept in contact with through their leader, Jody. However, they were separated not only by tunnels, but also doors that were hidden away. That way, if anyone found out about the maze that was their living space, they would hopefully believe only a small group of people stayed there.

   No one was sure how the tunnel system had come to be, but they assumed it had been built in the early days of the final war, for people to hide from bombs and radiation—a bunker, except turned into a maze that could form a city if more work would’ve been put into it. Dean just hoped that didn’t mean they were gonna find bones.

   Charlie was a hacker. She helped out with the tech systems in spaceships, but since they didn’t have enough resources to build that many of those, she had mainly worked in the heart of the system at EGC, dug too deep, and found things she didn’t like but that weren’t enough to put a whole story together. She decided not to leave, but to stay in case anything should happen, and she might be able to help.

   “And she was,” Jess said with a sad smile.

   Charlie had to run after that stunt, though. She was a pro, but she had a feeling there were eyes on her, and she wasn’t taking any chances. She’d fled with Jess into underground tunnels that she’d found a long time ago. “Besides, I got the info,” she said. “It’s not much, but it might fill up some gaps. It’s names, mostly. Well, they didn’t do anything actually incriminating, but it becomes suspicious given what we know.”

   She was right; individually, there wasn’t much to the info. Nothing incriminating at all. But there was _something_.

   “It’s a hierarchy,” Dean said after looking at it for a while. “You put in in the right order, you find the asshole who runs this show.”

   “What?”

   “These names—they’re all connected. Given what we know and Charlie’s info that goes with them—it’s a puzzle, ain’t it?” Dean was horrible at puzzles, but he knew at least one person in this room was not.

   “Alright,” Sam said. “Give me that. I need to be doing something.”

   “Great.” Dean got up and looked at Charlie. “You got any food around here? I don’t mind cooking.”

*

   It was a few days later and Dean and Cas were both taking a nap when Sam came knocking at their door. He didn’t look surprised to see them sharing a bed at all. “We need you guys to do some fact-checking.”

   “You had to wake me up for that?”

   Sam shrugged. “You’ve been sleeping for a while, Dean. Seems like you were both pretty exhausted.” He pulled a face. “Please forget I said that.”

   Dean wiggled his eyebrows. They hadn’t had sex—though their make out session was pretty good, but Sam didn’t need to know that. They were both still wearing the clothes they’d arrived on Earth in, though, so that should tell him enough. Maybe that was the reason Dean was so disappointed by his reaction.

   “You can stop being gross now or I’ll just force you out of bed,” Sam said as he turned away and left.

   “Aw, come on.”

   It was only then that it sank in what just happened. Sam had seen him in bed with a guy. Someone who looked like a guy, anyway. Sam hadn’t looked disgusted. Dean hadn’t even realised that it was happening until his brother had left again.

   Huh.

   Alright, sure, it wasn’t exactly like their biggest issue right now was who Dean did or did not sleep with, but apparently he’d been expecting _some_ reaction. This was almost worse, like he could expect the backlash at some point even though he understood perfectly well that Sam wasn’t Dad. Dad wouldn’t have said anything, either, but he would’ve judged Dean silently. Dad had always judged Dean silently.

   “You worry too much.”

   “Yeah, I guess.”

   “It would seem your brother and his friends need us. We should not let them wait.”

   Dean really wished they could allow themselves the luxury of not getting up until they felt like it, the way he had been able to on Xa’ar, and immediately stomped down that thought. This wasn’t the time to think of how spoiled he’d become. He didn’t deserve to be spoiled in any way at the time; he certainly didn’t now.

   Everyone else was already sitting at a table in the biggest room they had available, a see-through screen hovering over the table that Dean was sure someone had stolen from the Centre, because that was some expensive shit. 

   “Here’s what we got,” Sam said when he heard them enter. “Ruby was somewhere down the end of the food chain, I think. They’ve got a few puppets. Except she stopped acting like one, so they got rid of her.”

   “Makes sense, I guess.” Maybe she _had_ wanted to help Sam; but Dean would still bet on that not being the case. He didn’t say that out loud, though. He couldn’t prove it, and it didn’t matter if she was dead, anyway.

   Sam pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything else on that topic. “Anyway, get this. At the top, things get weird.” He pointed, like Dean had no idea what he could possibly mean by ‘at the top’ when there was a triangle of name labels right in front of them. “There’s names there that I don’t recognize. I don’t think they work at EGC at all.”

   “Crowley is dead,” Cas said, spotting the name before Dean did. “I obliterated him.” He said it without any inflection in his tone, like he hadn’t been anxious about killing so many even if those things had been trying to kill them all. 

   Everybody else just stared at him. Charlie’s eyes were almost comically wide. Dean was sure they were only realising now just what they were dealing with—something that wasn’t _human_.

   But neither was their enemy.

   “Crowley is an alien,” Jess said, not phrasing it as a question.

   “Was,” Dean said with a smirk, because even if Cas wasn’t proud of what he’d done, Dean could be proud for him. He cleared his throat when he caught Cas’s eye. “Yeah.”

   “So, what, they sent their people to Earth to make sure we wouldn’t get to _their_ planet first and take over?” she went on, looking at them expectantly.

   “Looks like it.”

   That, too, made sense. Dean had assumed there were aliens on Earth anyway, and Cas had even suggested this to be their reasoning before. In the context of what they knew now? Little doubt it was true.

   “They’re kinda assholes,” Dean added, because he couldn’t help being petty.

   “What are they like?” Sam asked. He looked interested, but Sam was always interested in space stuff. Dean hadn’t given him the chance to get Cas apart again, but he knew his brother couldn’t wait to fire question after question at the guy. All the ones he hadn’t been able to ask while Dean and Cas were telling their story, in any case; Dean had almost been able to actually hear the wheels turning in his brother’s head.

   “Clouds of smoke that look like humans.”

   “They do not have a physical form,” Cas said before anyone could let out an exasperated sigh at Dean’s useless description. “They do, as Dean said, look like clouds of smoke to the naked eye, but they can shape themselves into anything. When dealing with humans, they would look like humans.”

   “Would you say they’d be able to shape themselves into something like, I dunno, a table?” Jess asked. “That’d be an easy way to spy on people.”

   “No, it would have to be a living organism. Besides, if this table was a being not from this planet, I assure you I would be able to recognize that and point it out to you.”

   “How?”

   “I see more than your physical appearance,” Cas said matter-of-factly, as if this was a totally normal thing. “I know when someone’s soul is tainted.”

   “We’ll trust you with that, then,” Jess said, looking somewhere between impressed and nervous. Dean didn’t blame her. He’d thought about Castiel’s piercing gaze before, but hearing that he could literally see into his soul? Dean wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that himself.

   Anyway, Dean trusted Cas, and if Cas said he would be able to recognize a smoky cloud in disguise if he saw one, Dean believed him. And that meant at least everyone except Cas himself was human, and not a cloud shaped into someone Dean cared about. He couldn’t help but think of Meg changing into Sam and felt a little sick not even considering the possibility before.

   “Cas saved me. Erm—more than once,” he admitted with a look at Sam. “If we can’t trust him, we can’t trust anybody.” He hadn’t mentioned the being ripped apart situation to Sam when they did their story, partly because he’d made Sam worry enough, and partly because… Well, it was slightly embarrassing how often Cas had pulled him out of some dire situation by now.

   For the sake of his bruised ego, it was better not to think about it too much.

   “Anyway,” Dean said awkwardly.

   “Right,” Sam agreed, shooting his brother a look that said they’d be discussing this later. Dean was not looking forward to it. “So at the top, there’s some guy—”

   “Person,” Cas said.

   “—called Luke.”

   “That could be anyone,” Jess sighed.

   “It could be,” Cas agreed, “But considering our theories, I have a suggestion. I believe his real name is Lu’cfer.”

   “I’ve seen that name,” Sam said. “It was on a timeline about—”

   “My home planet, yes.”

   “I thought we were dealing with those demonic clouds of smoke,” Dean said.

   “We are. Lu’cfer… betrayed his father, the King Charles, who was seen as a just and fair ruler at the time, before…” Cas looked away. “Before he disappeared after the Fall.”

   Dean opened his mouth to ask, but got elbowed in his side by his brother to stay quiet.

   “The King was willing to bargain with the Atalan people. Just trade, a share of the Io-iad in exchange for open traffic, trade, and the insurance of peace between the planets despite age-old hostility. Xa’ar was stronger than them, or so we thought.

   “Lu’cfer did not agree with the trade. He believed the Atalans beneath us, and thought his father was a fool for allowing all these things and still being willing to listen to other demands, even if the King did not immediately accept those. I am summarising this for you, but in reality, it was a long and complicated argument that lead to Lu’cfer’s rebelling against his father’s wishes. It was seen as treason. He was banished.”

   “Sounds a bit excessive.”

   “The King was a very powerful man, Dean, and the topic of contention was an important one. It had the potential to soften the relation between the planets, or to unleash a war. The decision had to be unanimous, or at least appear to be. Would you strike a bargain with a people divided, when that meant part of them might turn on you at any moment?”

   “I guess not.”

   “Seems counterproductive to banish someone for disagreeing on a topic like this when there’s only one other place to go,” Sam said.

   “You are right. Not all planets in our solar system are habitable for us,” Cas explained before anyone could ask. “There was only one place Lu’cfer could go if he did not want to live out his life trying to hide from his kin.”

   “Planet’s big,” Dean said.

   “Yes, but there is much communication among its population. We are powerful, but not many. Communication is highly necessary when your planet is not the only one housing sentient beings.”

   “So what it comes down to is that this guy is the reason a planet in a completely different galaxy got pulled into some stupid feud?” Charlie said. “And here I always thought aliens would be cool.”

   “Cas is cool,” Dean said pointlessly. Everybody ignored him.

   “That is an oversimplification, but yes,” Cas said. “Although I don’t know how that came to be, exactly. We have not heard about Lu’cfer for a long time. He does not work on the surface, it seems.”

   “But what is he looking for here, of all places? The planet is dying.” Jess looked confused and angry. “There’s no point.”

   They were all quiet for a while before Dean said slowly, “Maybe there is.” He didn’t elaborate right away, but hurried to his room where he’d left his duffel that held the seed they’d gone through such lengths to get. He only had to put it on the table for Cas’s eyes to widen in understanding. “We can’t be the only ones who thought of this.”

   “’This’ being…”

   “This is the Io-iad, Sam—the seed that is so important to my solar system.” Cas looked at Dean and nodded. “Lu’cfer and his people are making sure you humans will not find other options. They want the planet to die. They believe they can remake it into a paradise far away from my people.”

   “Would it not be more practical to just wipe out what’s left of life on Earth?” Charlie wondered out loud. “That’s gotta be a lot faster than waiting for us all to drop like flies. We’re tougher than we look to those bitches.”

   “That would lead to intergalactic war,” Cas said solemnly. “I truly believe my kind would not stand for that. We are not perfect, but I like to think we too draw a line somewhere. M’chal has been looking for a reason to settle things with his brother for a long time.”

   “So, more like vengeance,” Charlie said.

   “Vengeance,” Castiel agreed.

   “Wait,” Dean said. “Michael? The holier-than-thou fluffy-white-wings asshat that lead my trial?”

   “That would be the same person,” Cas said. “He is not officially king, as Charles never abdicated nor, as far as we can prove, died, but he would be next in line. That means he currently has the highest position on our planet… and he revels in the power.”

   “Fucking hell, man.”

   “So let me get this straight,” Sam interrupted. “The son of the guy who rules your whole planet was thrown out and is now waiting for us to die out so he can start a new life here, far away from the home planet that banished him. And he’s only waiting because if we die out naturally, no intergalactic war will be started for mass murder.”

   “In summary, yes,” said Cas.

   “So can’t we just get your people involved?”

   “Earth will not survive that. M’chal does not care, Sam, about anything but his own people and fighting with his brother. Lu’cfer would care, but I do not believe he would win the fight. Neither does he, or he would have taken over here already.”

   “This is getting too complicated,” Jess said. “We need to boil it down to a simple thing that we might be able to fix. We find the core of the alien system on Earth, and we make sure we get rid of them before the human race dies out. Whatever happens after that, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

   Dean really liked Jess. “Make it up as we go. I like that.”

   “I don’t have any better plans,” she said. “And planning for the long haul, when it comes to something like this? I don’t think that’s gonna work anyway. It’s gonna be difficult enough as it is. We shouldn’t risk something going differently than planned and completely throwing us off.”

   “I’d like to have some idea of what to do,” Sam said.

   “I’m not saying we shouldn’t. I’m saying we shouldn’t plan ahead too far, not in detail anyway.”

   “So we find Luke, or Lucifer, or whatever he’s called,” Dean said.

   “We find the one who leads the operation on Earth,” Jess said.

   “That will be Lu’cfer,” said Cas. “I understand enough about him to know that he would want to keep an eye on things, although he may not be acting in a leading role.”

   “If we can figure that out, we go after him. If we can’t—I figure, if we take out whoever is their head on the surface, we’ll hear from him after that anyway.”

   Sam was looking at her like he was just seeing her in a new light, or maybe seeing what he already knew was there but was now pointed out to him more clearly—Jess was amazing. Dean truly couldn’t have imagined a better partner for his brother. He’d met her before, but that had been so different, visiting when he was already behind bars. He’d heard Sam talk about her, and they’d spoken over the comm while he was on Xa’ar, but seeing her in action like this?

   “Dean, stop ogling my girlfriend,” Sam said with a smirk.

   “Jess, you’ve got the wrong Winchester. Marry me.”

   She laughed. “Sorry, Dean. Already got other plans.” She winked, and Dean couldn’t help but stare. “Wha—” He whipped around to face his brother. “You’re getting _married_?”

   “Oh my god, Dean, now’s not the time,” Sam said, but his eyes were shining and it was clear he was happy to finally talk about it. “It’s not like we could ever have a big party or anything, and especially now—” He shook his head. “But we agreed that, if we get the chance… After all that happened, and that could happen, it’d be stupid to wait. So, yeah.”

   “Good enough for me,” Dean said, grinning so broadly he thought his face might break. “Can’t believe we’re getting some good news here.”

   “Congrats, guys,” Charlie said. It was strange, seeing everyone smile in this underground bunker, faces barely lit by the candles around them. Place like this, time like this, it felt like everything should have been solemn. Their smiles looked almost out of place here.

   But then, they could use anything to make them smile right now.

   Later, Sam would tell him, “I felt like we had to talk about it now, you know? So in case anything happens—at least she knows.” And Dean would think of Cas, who was sitting at the table talking to Charlie, and wonder if there was anything he had to tell him, too.

   There was a bed down here that was big enough for them to share, and it was becoming a thing they did regularly. Sure, they’d only been here a few days, and Cas barely slept, but he would lie next to Dean if everyone was taking a nap anyway. Yesterday morning he’d woken up covered by a wing, and it had been surprisingly _nice_. It wasn’t a big thing, nothing life-changing, but at the same time it had felt like it was. He didn’t have the guts to tell Cas he wouldn’t mind if that happened again, or that he felt quite content under the blanket of feathers. He’d been covered by them before, but somehow it was different now. There was no necessity, and no curiosity. It just was.

   It was sappy as hell, but Dean wondered if he should have said it anyway.

   He didn’t ask Sam what he thought, though. He couldn’t imagine telling his brother, _Hey, so this alien that looks like a guy with wings? I think I love him._

   Despite what Sam had said, he wasn’t sure about the right time. Or the right words.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Kissing is a human act to show emotions.” Cas smiled. “I have found that I really appreciate this act.”

**Twenty.**

 

   He didn’t get the chance to talk to Cas about all this, anyway. Well, he would have, had he done it once they were lying in bed that night. Cas generally didn’t fall asleep before Dean did since he slept so much less, and Dean couldn’t sleep because he kept turning the conversation over in his head. _Tell him_ , he imagined Sam saying to him. _What could go wrong?_

   Everything could go wrong. They could all be dead in a few days. Depending on how smart these creatures were, they could be dead in an hour. It all depended on the plan they had yet to devise, and who would find whom first—they, or the aliens.

   Dean had already almost died several times over in just the past few months. If he had to tell anyone anything, he should just go ahead and get on with it. They’d kissed. They slept together. It wasn’t like nobody had an inkling of what was going on here.

   Saying the actual words, though—

   So in the end, he didn’t, and the next day he never got a moment with Cas alone to begin with. Charlie had made a floor plan of the tunnels they lived in (not as complicated as Dean had first thought, but still not quite easy to navigate), a list of resources (not many), and a copy of the name hierarchy they looked at the day before.

   Now everyone was sitting around the table staring at the documents, with no plans being verbally communicated whatsoever.

   “We don’t even know who we’re supposed to be looking for,” Jess pointed out, sounding unsure for the first time. “For all we know, this guy is around the Dubai centre. Or even much further South, or East. Or not even on Earth at all. I don’t know. How are we so sure they’re here, anyway?”

   “I might be able to look that up,” Charlie said, but she didn’t sound too convinced either. None of them knew about any information in the EGC that referred to any other tech centres, even if Dean guessed it had to exist, right? If they could communicate with ships in outer space, they could communicate with the few major tech centres that existed around the world.

   Jess was right, though. How were they so sure their key players were in America in the first place? The people who locked up Jess and tried to kill Dean could have done it on an order. Dean couldn’t deny he’d just assumed that was how this would work—he’d grown up here, never set foot outside their area in his life, like most people hadn’t. Until he’d been sent out to another planet, this had been his world. There was a huge difference between knowing other centres existed, and actually _knowing_ it, if that made sense at all.

   Cas didn’t contribute to the discussion at all.

   Jess seemed to be getting back to herself, though, determined not to be shut down by a doubt. “There’s gotta be a way we can deduce his location. If he’s not here, then they have to be in contact with whatever centre he’s at, don’t they? Or do you think they have outside communication systems for that?”

   It would’ve been too easy, Dean thought, to assume that now they were back on Earth, they’d be able to rush into EGC, take out the bad guys, and live happily ever after. That was how he’d imagined it, saving the world, brandishing knives. Didn’t matter that his body probably wasn’t even up for that—he’d still do it if he had to. But instead, they were sitting here again, trying to come up with plans to wipe out the enemy and make Earth liveable again, and he had never felt so useless in his life.

   Planning ahead had never been Dean’s strongest suit.

   “Okay, so, any way you can find the communication log without being found out?” Sam asked Charlie. “We can look into that, see if they’re in contact with any outside centres, maybe what the nature of that contact is. Cas, can you write down as much about this Lu’cfer as you can possibly come up with? Any little detail might help. If there’s anything you know about any of the other names, don’t hesitate to write that down either. That goes for everybody.” He looked at Dean and Jess. “Dean, I want you to discuss Atala with us again. Once we’ve got all that, we can take another look at the journal. Whoever’s finished first can start with that.”

   Everyone stared at him.

   Sam sighed. “Listen, I know it’s not ideal, and that half of this feels pointless. But we’re not getting anywhere by sitting here like this, and I can’t stand the sound of people doing nothing.”

   “You’re right,” Charlie said. “We can’t sit around doing nothing, knowing what we do. This is the best we’ve got. If anything new pops up, holler. Let’s do it.”

*

   The problem was this: Dean wasn’t good at research. Or, as Sam put it: “You _are_ good at research, Dean, you just don’t like sitting still.”

   Either way, it didn’t matter to Dean why he didn’t like it; all he knew was he was getting itchy to be doing something, not unlike the way he’d felt in that cave all those months ago.

   “Sam calls it ‘cabin fever’,” Cas told him once, air quotes and all. They were lying in bed, both on their respective sides, and Dean didn’t dare tell him he needed to be closer. “He says it is an urge to get out and do something.”

   “We’re not getting anywhere with this,” Dean said. He’d almost said it in the company of everybody else, then held himself back at the last moment and just up and left to go to bed. It wasn’t their fault. If they had to go on like this for much longer, though…

   “I understand your frustration,” Cas said quietly. “We are all on edge. We all want for this to end.”

   “We’re just sitting here with our stock of food and water and people out there are dying because they have none of that. And I don’t get—I don’t get why we’d deserve to find a place like this and nobody else would. Everybody hates this situation. They deserve for things to change. Dammit, Cas, what about Bobby?”

   “This situation would not work for everyone. You know that.” Cas sighed. “This is a temporary solution. If we are found, we are trapped. Undoubtedly if we let everybody in, that is exactly what would happen. You cannot let an entire population disappear without it being noticed.”

   “I know. It’s just—I made things worse, Cas, and here I am.”

   “All you did was not die. I hardly think that is a bad thing.”

   Had he died like he was supposed to, no one would have understood the situation as well as they did now. Maybe not at all. But how much of a feat was that, really? He’d just brought the people he loved in more danger than they already had been all their lives. Sam and Jess could have died. He’d brought Cas into this. Gabriel, too, although from what he understood from Cas, Gabe had come out of all this relatively unscathed. “People are dying.”

   “People have been dying for a long time, if I understand correctly.”

   “I made things worse.”

   “And now you can make them better than they were before. You can’t save everyone.”

   “I can try.”

   “Dean,” Cas said. It was a demand for Dean to look at him. “We have no reports of things being much different than they used to be outside your Ground Control Centre. This is not the apocalypse. We can fix this.”

   “They killed Ruby,” Dean said, even though he didn’t care about Ruby at all. “They imprisoned Jess somewhere nobody knew about to get information from her and to ensure Sam wouldn’t step out of line.” She didn’t talk about it, but he was afraid of what might have happened in her solitary confinement. He didn’t doubt the prison master, Alastair, had sadistic tendencies that he would take any chance to act out. Dean remembered wishing prisoners weren’t used as cheap labourers for dirty jobs because if he were just locked away, he could have begged Alastair to kill him.

   Pathetic, but no less true for it.

   Just thinking of Alastair made him shudder. That was just another thing he’d never told anybody.

   “Dean?”

   “Yeah. Sorry.”

   Cas was just staring at him with worried eyes that almost made Dean uncomfortable. “You have been through so much,” he said quietly. “That does not mean you do not deserve to be happy. We are not many here, but everyone cares about you. I promise you that.”

   “What the hell, Cas.”

   “Your face is very easy to read, and you are in pain,” Cas said, pain clear enough in his own voice that it made Dean look away again.

   “Yeah, well, world like this, not much good is gonna happen.”

   “This is true.” He sounded contemplative. “I see pain in everyone’s eyes here. But you…” He seemed to hesitate for a moment, and Dean could see his hand twitch from the corner of his eyes, like the alien wanted to reach out for him but didn’t dare to. “You carry it with you as if it is all your fault.”

   “Coulda saved myself a load of trouble if I just hadn’t been thrown into prison. Or just friggin’ died when I should’ve.”

   Cas hummed sadly. “That does not make you a bad person, and it does not mean you deserved all the things that happened to you. You cannot see it yourself, but you have such a beautiful soul, Dean.”

   He was crying. Dean Winchester didn’t cry, goddammit, but here he was, not sure when exactly the tears had started rolling down and not sure what to do with them now that he’d noticed them. He tried to wipe them away as inconspicuously as he could, and Cas thankfully didn’t mention them, even though Dean was sure he’d seen. “Why?”

   “Why?” Cas repeated, confused.

   “You tell me all this even after I dragged you into all this crap,” Dean said. “Why?”

   “I thought this was clear.” He sounded almost resigned. “These past months, I learned things I never expected to. Yes, your language, and the consequences of the history of my planet and our hostility towards Atala. But not just that.”

   Dean had a feeling he knew what was coming, and he really, really wanted to turn away and put his hands over his ears. But he also knew that this was something he wanted to hear, even if he was scared of it. He’d admitted this to himself just a few days ago, and now it was about to happen, and he was terrified.

   “I learned feelings that I have not felt before,” Cas said in a much smaller voice than Dean was used to from him. “I knew regret, and despair. I knew contentment. I knew a range of emotions, and I thought I understood all of them. But after I met you… I believe my understanding was wrong. That emotions can go much deeper than my kind allows them to. Especially—”

   _Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it._

“—love.”

   “Cas…”

   “Dean. Please do me the courtesy of not contradicting me.”

   Dean shut up.

   “I did a lot for you these past months. I do not want you to feel bad about this. It was my own choice. I want you to understand that. All I ask is you do not brush that away because you don’t think you can be loved that way.”

   “Shit,” Dean said, because he didn’t know what else to say. “I just kinda really wanna kiss you right now.”

   “Kissing is a very human act to show certain feelings.” Cas smiled. “I have found that I really appreciate this act.”

   “You’re telling me you’d never done it before?”

   “I never had the occasion.”

   Something inside Dean felt like it might burst any second. He thought it might be his heart. “For someone who’s only done it a few times, you’re pretty good at it.”

   Cas let out a laugh at that—an actual sound of humour and embarrassment. “I am glad.”

   Dean didn’t think he’d ever get enough of kissing Cas. If things were different, he would be doing it constantly—just little pecks in passing, deep kisses despite their morning breath, goodnight kisses before going to sleep. He would call Cas gross pet names, and Cas would reciprocate in kind. They’d snuggle up at night without feeling awkward about it. Dean would tell Cas he loved him without fearing the word.

   “I know,” Cas said quietly after putting some distance between their lips. “Dean, it’s alright. I know.”

   “Fuck that,” Dean said. “All this shit we’ve been through and I can’t even say a few words? I’m not waiting for something terrible to happen before I say it. Shit, we might be dead in a few days, who knows? I _need_ you.” He bit his lip. “No. Well, I do, dammit, but I love you, too.”

   “Okay,” Cas said with a smile.

   “That’s all you gotta say?”

   “I’m glad you said it, but I knew. There are many more ways to tell someone this. That said…” Cas pressed another long kiss on Dean’s lips. “I’m proud of you.”

   “Please stay.”

   “I always stay.”

   “No, I mean… Like this.”

   “You like to cuddle.”

   “Shut up, Cas.”

   “Of course, Dean.”

*

   They were a good team, the five of them. Charlie was a master with computers. Sam was their puzzle master, with some help from Cas, expert on all things alien. Jess was the one who connected the dots. Dean—well, Dean tried, although people kept telling him they needed his perspective. He wasn’t as smart as the rest of them, but he guessed sometimes he saw things they didn’t, and that was worth something.

   However, it still took them an embarrassingly long time to figure some things out.

   “They have contact with all major tech centres around the world,” Charlie told them, “but no one more than the others. I think if we’re gonna look for a big boss, we might as well look right here.”

   “The book doesn’t mention Earth explicitly,” Sam said, “but we think it’s in there anyway. _Galaxy point three-twelve, planet sixteen._ ”

   “Terra,” Cas agreed. “We cannot be sure, but we believe this is a code.”

   “Alright,” Dean said. “That just means it’s proved what we already know, which is that Earth is important.”

   “You have seen Atala,” Cas said. “It has an ecosystem not dissimilar to yours. It is the closest planet we know of that could sustain the same ecosystem, if things can go back the way they were before your war. I am sure that with time, they can. And our species… we both have plenty of that.”

   “Which means Earth can be saved,” Jess said. “We’re humans, we don’t have the kind of time you do. But only for ourselves. We can still save Earth for future generations. And we can still live out our own lives, just on a shittier Earth than our kids and their kids will see. Or so I hope.”

   “We’ve lived on a shitty Earth all our lives,” Dean said. “I think we can deal with it.”

   It was funny how he would have kicked someone’s ass had they told him even a year ago that he’d say this. Locked in a cell, faced with Alastair every day, worrying about his family and if they would be able to eat that night even when he knew they were better off than he was, he’d actually considered the idea that it was better the way things were. Humanity got Earth to this point, might as well go down with it.

   But that was in his darkest hours, facing internal and external demons alike. In the morning, whenever he worked on a new project and spoke to other people, he also knew he’d never give up on humanity. Yeah, they sucked. But thinking of Sam, Jess, Bobby, all those people he spoke to when they mentioned their family in passing? Dean refused to believe there was nothing worth saving. Looking back, he was pretty sure he’d always known that.

   “That’s the spirit,” Charlie said. “So I was thinking—maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. Maybe we shouldn’t be looking for a Lu’cfer, or even a Luke. We’re too focused on this person when we should be looking at who’s at the core of all this like we said, disregarding any names.”

   “You’re saying he’s going by a different one,” Dean said.

   “I’m not sure, but I think he might be. Either that, or he’s laying low while he’s making someone else do all the work, in which case I still think it’s worth finding this person. They might be able to tell us something.”

   Jess grimaced, but nodded. So did everyone else.

   “I’m glad everyone’s agreeing,” Charlie said nervously. “Because I have a name to go after, and I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. I never worked with him, though, so I’d like to hear it if someone’s got some personal info. His name is Alastair.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alastair didn’t scream, no matter what Dean did. No matter how much blood he drew, all the prison master did was laugh.

**Twenty-one.**

   “The prison master?” Dean said incredulously, shooting Jess a look and getting an equally shocked one in return.

   “He’s not in our hierarchy tree,” Charlie said, “but I don’t believe he has nothing to do with it. You don’t appoint someone in that position unless you trust he’ll do whatever you need him to do.”

   “You think he’s Lu’cfer?”

   “I don’t know about that,” she said. “But I think he might be _Luke_.”

   Dean didn’t get that, and thankfully he didn’t seem to be the only one, but Sam said, “You think they made it look like he runs the show, when the real boss isn’t even visible in the picture.”

   “Bingo.”

   “Okay,” Dean said, “but, the prison master?”

   “You mean, the one who decides who’s guilty of not following the rules and deals with them as he sees fit?” Jess said, mouth a thin line. She’d run this through her head a lot faster than Dean had, apparently. “If you had to point at someone who’s ruling this society, would that be one of the workers at EGC? Or the one who has the power to put you on a spaceship set to explode far away from Earth?”

   “Shit,” Dean said, because somehow that made a lot of sense. Alastair had tried to break him—he’d said it himself, even though Dean had always interpreted that as some kind of sick pleasure the man got from seeing people desperate. He’d tried to break him, but Dean never had—and so he sent him and a bunch of others on a mission made to fail. They were all on a death sentence.

   But why him? Why Jo? Aside from stealing some food, what had he done to have to be broken in the first place? What did they have in common?

   “Sam,” he said slowly, “can you show me that journal again?”

   He had no idea how he knew. He just had a feeling. Sam had never questioned the fact that their Dad was reported to die in a crash, not outwardly. Dean remembered telling the kid that something had gone wrong on his mission, that sometimes not even the best mechanic could help an accident with a ship. Sam had cried soundlessly, eyes red and cheeks wet from the tears but no sound leaving his throat. And it never had. Dad was gone, and Sam accepted that story.

   But there were no official crash records. It was a disappearance, even if they were told it wasn’t after a long time of waiting. Dean knew his father, or so he thought, anyway. He’d started digging. And he’d found nothing at all. No coordinates, no radar data of where the ship was seen last. It was suspicious, but he could in no way prove something more happened.

   He imagined now the report for his own voyage looked pretty similar. Sam said he had no idea what had happened to Dean, that their ship just disappeared and they’d feared the worst. Dean didn’t believe in coincidence.

   He wondered how long Alastair had been keeping an eye on him before he caught him doing something illegal, and if they’d recruited Sam in order to keep him in check.

   “What do you want with it?” Sam asked as he handed over the journal to Dean, who immediately flipped it open on the first page. It didn’t take him any time at all to locate what he was looking for. “See this?”

   It was a scribble on the corner of the inside of the cover, so small it was hard to make out. “Yeah,” Sam said, “they were probably testing their pencil or bored or something.”

   “This thing look like it was written by someone who would just doodle in it?”

   “Well, no, but—”

   “ _Look_ , Sam.”

   Everyone stayed silent for a while as Sam stared at the tiny scrawl. “You’re saying this is Dad’s,” he finally stated.

   “I’m saying the report of Dad’s final voyage probably looks a lot like mine.”

   “Shit, Dean.”

   Dean laughed, but there was no humour in it. “I can’t believe this.”

   “You might’ve been on their radar for years,” Jess said quietly. “I’m sorry, guys.”

   “No, I’m sorry.” Sam had tears in his eyes looking at her. “You were always gonna be pulled into this. And I could have known. I should have known. I should’ve listened to Dean when he admitted something was wrong, but I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted to accept things for what they were and move on, and now here we are.”

   “Stop acting like it’s your fault,” Jess said.

   “It’s a family trait,” Cas chimed in.

   Dean wanted to tell him to shut up, but it did lighten the mood, if only a little. “Dad knew a lot of what we know now. I’ve no idea how he found out. Don’t think we’ll ever find out, now.” Dean bit his lip. “Bill Harvelle… He was on the same ship as Dad, wasn’t he?”

   “So why didn’t they send me?”

   “There’s no excuse to send someone like you on a space voyage, Sam, you’re way too valuable. I guess they thought they could keep you in check if you were just in their midst.”

   “Okay,” Charlie said. “So they wipe out everyone who knows too much. You were one of them. The prison master is likely in charge of this. So—what? We can’t exactly go up to him and ask.”

   “I’m not planning to ask nicely, anyway,” Dean said. If Alastair really had as big a part in the operation as they thought he did, he’d not only gotten John Winchester, Bill Harvelle, and Jo Harvelle killed, but also at least several other innocent people on the ship with them. Nancy, Victor, Ash. He’d locked up Jess. Tried to kill Dean.

   He failed at that, but Dean thought he probably managed to break him nonetheless, even if he’d never shown it.

   Jess was looking at him with wide eyes, like she understood, but didn’t want to. She didn’t say anything around all the others, though, and Dean was grateful for that. Still, he had the feeling she wouldn’t let his slip-up go so easily.

   “If anyone knows where this Lu’cfer is, it’s gonna be him,” he finally said. “We need this guy.” He couldn’t believe he’d never seen it before now. Sure, he’d never thought actual aliens existed, let alone that they would be on Earth, but how could he not have thought of Alastair after the ship crashed? He even remembered how he was reminded of the guy while he was on Xa’ar, and yet it hadn’t clicked. He’d just thought Alastair was a dick, some kind of sadist who got off on people being in pain. Not someone in a bigger plan.

   Maybe that made it so smart to put him of all people in charge of the aliens on Earth. Because even if people found out, they’d never think of him. Sam hadn’t found his name in the journal, so even John Winchester probably hadn’t figured it out on time.

   Dean wondered why he’d left it on Earth. He wondered if his Dad had known he wouldn’t survive the trip, if John had left it for him to find and figure things out later. Sam said Jess was the one who found it, though, so that had to mean it had ended up out of place, maybe among Sam’s stuff when he moved out.

   He wondered if he’d ever understand the man John Winchester had been, or the man he’d wanted Dean to be.

   “I can do it,” Cas said. When everyone stared at him, he clarified, “I can find the man and bring him here. I will be able to tell if he is human, so I will know how to handle him.”

   “No,” Dean said.

   “What do you mean, _no_.”

   “Cas, this guy—” Dean shook his head. “I don’t think you should do that alone.”

   “I can handle myself.”

   “Cas.” Jess, looking at them seriously. “I think it’s a good idea if you and Dean talk about this. We all have faith in you being able to take care of yourself, but he knows more about this guy than any of us. He knows what to expect. At least consider it.”

   Cas gave her a long look before finally agreeing, “Very well.”

   “And if we do have him?” Sam asked, shooting a look at Jess as well. “Are we just gonna ask what’s up?”

   “We’ll see,” Dean said.

   He wanted nothing more than to tear the man apart for all that he’d done, whether he was actually responsible for all those deaths or not—he was surely responsible for several other things, and that was enough for Dean.

   He didn’t care if that just showed how badly he wanted to take his anger out on something. This something deserved it.

   “Dean,” Sam said. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

   “Yeah,” Dean said with a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Sure.”

   “Dean,” Sam said again when they entered the next room and closed the door. “What did Alastair do to you?”

   “Nothing.”

   “I’ve seen Jess’s scars. I know he likes his knives. You’re too… bitter about this for nothing to have happened. I don’t believe you. I’d like to see him gone just as badly as anyone. But…”

   “He’s a sadistic piece of crap.” The words sounded as bitter as they tasted, full of a hate Dean had never felt before. “If he really is who we think he is, he’s responsible for Dad’s death, Sam. And Jo’s, and all those other people’s. And even if he isn’t, he’s done enough. I’m sick of things not working out for us. I want some goddamn justice here.”

   “And you think you’ll get it by, what? Killing someone?”

   “If that’s what it takes.”

   Sam was radiating disappointment, and it was worse than anything else Dean felt right now. He wanted Sam to look up to his big brother, even if Dean hadn’t done much to warrant it. He didn’t want Sam to look at him like he knew exactly the kind of person Dean had become. He couldn’t stand it.

   He left the room without another word.

*

   Getting to Alastair was surprisingly easy, although Dean thought it might have a lot to do with the fact that Cas was the one doing it. The moment Dean pointed out Alastair, he nodded and said, “Atalan,” without a sliver of doubt in his voice even while Dean couldn’t see the difference between this guy and any other human, except his bad associations with that terrible smirk.

   “Okay, so be subtle. If he alarms anyone…”

   “I know, Dean. Stay here. I will be back in a moment.”

   Even after all this time, it amazed Dean how gracefully Castiel could move with such huge wings folded up against his back. He was quieter than Dean could ever hope to be even when he made an effort, like the wings were lifting Cas’s feet up off the ground even when he didn’t have them stretched out to fly.

   Dean could look at him all day, if things were different.

   _When_ things were different, maybe.

   They’d picked a time when Dean knew Alastair would be making his rounds, after everyone was locked behind bars again. Shit as it was that they couldn’t free the people they knew were innocent, they also didn’t want anyone to see them, or to get hurt if Alastair fought back. If things ever turned out the way they hoped in the end, they could free all those people anyway. If they didn’t—well, Earth was dying, and Dean was quite sure the aliens would find a way to speed up the process if they screwed this up.

   Turned out Cas was as good at being stealthy as he was blasting explosions of light, though, so Dean needn’t have worried about this part. Cas’s eyes were glowing fiercely when he returned with Alastair’s limp body. “We will have to mark him so he will not be able to change and get away once he wakes up,” he said before Dean could even open his mouth to say anything. “I need you to keep a lookout while I do this. We can then return underground.”

   It wasn’t really a surprise how much Dean didn’t want to go back in the stuffy tunnel system, but he hadn’t realised just how badly he missed being out in the open until now. The air wasn’t much fresher out here, but it still felt like it was if only because it was above ground, and he liked the thought of being able to run should something come at them. At the same time, he was fully aware it wasn’t safe, not now.

   He just wished he could make his way to Bobby’s house, see how the old man was holding up. Maybe he could even get him to hide with them. Knowing the paranoid bastard, he was probably already in hiding somewhere, though. Dean smirked at the thought even though it pained him that it was even necessary.

   “Alright,” Cas said behind him. “Let’s go.”

   Seeing Alastair so helpless over Cas’s shoulder, like a rag doll, was both strange and incredibly satisfying. Seeing him go down as easily as he did as he was taken down by Dean’s boyfriend (was that a thing now?), even better. It was hard to see now what he had been so afraid of at the time, even though he could still remember the feeling too well.

   “That was fast,” Charlie said when they arrived back in what they had taken to call their bunker. “I mean, I know you said you could handle it, Cas, but I wasn’t expecting it to be this easy.”

   “Wait till he wakes up,” Cas said grimly. “I assure you, this creature will not take lightly to it.”

   Cas was the one who’d backed Dean up in the end and convinced everyone to let him take on Alastair. Well, Sam and Jess weren’t convinced, but he thought Charlie tried to understand even if she didn’t agree with Dean’s preferred methods. She seemed to think they knew what they were doing though which was a bloody joke. Dean didn’t tell her that.

   So it came to Dean, and it was only now that he was starting to doubt this decision. Maybe they were all right. Dean _was_ weak, and Alastair had always known just what to say.

   It didn’t matter, though. He had to do this. Dean was already broken anyway, and if this could save other people from being hurt or dying… He’d handle it.

*

   “Dean, Dean, Dean.” Alastair smirked even through the blood between his teeth. “Look at you. Look at what you’ve become. Was it worth it? Your daddy never broke down like this, you know. It was a pity I didn’t get to practice on him more, though…”

   “You shut your face about my Dad.” He knew it was a bad idea to respond to Alastair’s words, but he couldn’t stop himself. He’d thought he knew what to expect, but he hadn’t considered the fact that once Alastair realised he knew his father didn’t just disappear, it would give him more leverage rather than shut him up.

   “Poor little boy, scared and alone, aren’t you? And he so wanted you to grow up a hero, protecting your brother, didn’t he? Ohh, look at yourself, Dean. What would Daddy say if he saw you now? How would little Sammy feel if he walked in right now?”

   There was blood on the knife Dean was holding. It was from an alien that was basically really a cloud of smoke, but the blood looked almost scarily human. What was worse, though, was that he couldn’t bring himself to care. “Just tell me where your boss is. You guys just here doing the dirty work for him so he can come down once it’s all paradised up? That it?” He wasn’t sure if it was his patience he was losing, or his mind. “ _Answer me_.”

   Alastair didn’t scream, no matter what Dean did. No matter how much blood he drew, all the prison master did was laugh, like it didn’t hurt him. Dean had wondered if it did at first, considering he knew this wasn’t the creature’s normal form. But even if it was—even if Alastair turned out not to be a cloudy alien at all—he wasn’t sure if he gave a crap.

   “You are so pretty like this,” Alastair drawled, eyes shining with something Dean couldn’t and didn’t want to identify. “I wonder what your boyfriend will think of that shiny soul of yours now.”

   Of all the things the prison master had said so far, this slammed home the hardest, for reasons Dean had no energy to even want to figure out. Alastair had talked shit about his father, threatened with Sam’s life, reminded Dean of things he wanted to erase from his memory forever—but Dean had been expecting all that. Alastair had always used his family against him, and with what he now knew it hurt more than he thought it still would, but Dean had been able to brace himself for that.

   Cas, though—he had no idea how the man even knew about Cas, and he didn’t care to find out. Cas was the first person outside of Bobby, who had been a family friend, to _choose_ to love Dean, and who Dean had chosen to love in return. Not because he was family by blood, but because he cared about him as such anyway.

   And now Cas would see him like this. Dean had no doubt the other man was right behind their makeshift prison, even if he’d ordered all of them to stay away. He had to see now how bad Dean really was…

   “I still appreciate Dean’s soul quite immensely,” Cas’s voice said from behind Dean. “Thank you for your input.” He lowered his voice as he turned to Dean. “Are you alright?”

   “Cas…”

   “We never should have allowed you to do this. I never should have allowed you to do this. I am so sorry.”

   “Cas, I have to finish this.”

   But Cas was putting a hand on Dean’s cheek in a gesture far too tender when the recipient was covered in blood spatters, and Dean thought he might cry. “Dean, he is trying to wear you down. It isn’t worth it. Not like this.”

   _You failed,_ Dean thought to himself.

   “I don’t care,” he said, hopefully quietly enough the prison master wouldn’t hear. “We need _something_ , Cas. I’m not giving up like this.”

   “We’ll find another way.” Cas had let go of Dean’s face, but looked like he wanted to touch him again, if only to shake some sense into the human.

   “Like _what_? You wanna keep abducting people from the list till we find one that’ll talk? This guy’s our best shot, Cas. I’ve screwed up enough. I need to do this right.”

   “You’re hurting.”

   “Yeah, well. You can’t save everyone,” Dean said, throwing his lover’s words back at him.

   “I can try to save you.”

   Dean laughed humourlessly. “You’re gonna fail sometime.”

   “That won’t stop me.”

   He looked away. “Thanks, man. You’re gonna have to let me go on this one, though.”

   “Dean…”

   “You’ve saved me too often, Cas. There’s gonna be a point where you won’t like what you’ve brought back.” He looked away, toward Alastair, who had started whistling now—a dark tune that made Dean’s stomach churn. “It’s okay if that point is now.”

   “You phrase that like you are expecting me to let you down.” Cas sounded disappointed, and it just made Dean feel worse. “I know you have had few people in your life you have been able to count on, but I can assure you I—nor Sam and Jessica—would not do such a thing. And I do believe Charlie can truly be your friend if you let her.”

   “You’re a sap.”

   “No, but I do hope I can make you feel a little better.”

   “Yeah.” He looked at Alastair and grimaced. “It’s okay. I can do this.”

   “I will be here either way.”

   It was so sickeningly sweet, in their screwed up way, that Dean could feel his stomach making a somersault at those words. Cas would be there, whether Dean came out of it with or without cracks in his soul. He didn’t think that should affect him as much as it did, but as cliché as it was, it made him feel stronger.

   “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do this.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas took his wrists, lowering them to the bed. “You’re not you. You are upset. I understand that. But I need you to come back. I need you to leave that mask behind and come back to me.”

**Twenty-two.**

   “How’d it go?” Charlie asked anxiously when Dean and Cas entered their main room again. Her eyes flicked immediately to the blood on Dean’s sleeves and the frown on Cas’s face, and her face turned even more worried than it already had been. “Oh. Oh, no.”

   “I’m fine,” Dean grunted.

   “Clearly you’re not,” Sam said. “What happened?”

   “Alastair happened,” Cas said when it became clear Dean wasn’t gonna answer. The human’s jaw was working furiously, and Sam had to know that was a sign of Dean trying to keep in his tears, but he thankfully didn’t say a word.

   They’d all been right. He hadn’t been up for this. He should’ve stopped when Cas gave him an out and ran far away from the demon that was the prison master. Or had been. “Doesn’t matter. He’s dead.”

   “Dean,” Jess said softly. She didn’t sound judging, though, so he looked up into her tearful face and let himself be embraced. He didn’t dare look at Sam or Charlie, or even at Cas despite the fact that the latter had been there with him. Maybe because of that, though. He hadn’t looked Cas in the eye after their last conversation. It didn’t matter if he’d said he’d never drop Dean, there had to be a breaking point somewhere, and Dean could hardly imagine this not being it.

   He thought he understood now why Cas got so upset about killing those creatures back on Atala, even if they did try (and almost succeeded) to kill them.

   Dean had done a lot of terrible things in his life, but he’d never killed anyone. That was just another thing he could add to his list now.

   “It’s okay,” Jess whispered in his ear. “He can’t hurt you anymore now, right?”

   “Yeah,” Dean said, not correcting her on the reason his hands were trembling. Yeah, Alastair had managed to hurt him even without being able to touch him, but she was right—he couldn’t hurt them anymore. Dean had made sure of that.

   He couldn’t hurt them anymore, but Dean didn’t think he’d ever stop hurting. He’d never be rid of the taints that the creature had put on his body and in his mind, or the blood on his hands.

   Jess finally let go, and he could now see that she looked upset, but also relieved. Dean would probably never know what exactly she suffered at Alastair’s hands, and he hoped it wasn’t the same as his own treatment, but he knew she had been hurt. He knew how much of a relief it was to know that person would never see another day, let alone the day they were all hoping would come, that would look brighter than anything did right now.

   “I’m gonna—go.”

   It was a relief when no one tried to stop him as he fled to the room he shared with Cas. Presumably they were all asking the alien what had happened now, but Dean couldn’t care less. They deserved to know, but he didn’t want to tell them, so if Cas took that responsibility, Dean was fine with that. He took off his bloody shirt, wanting nothing more than to burn it, and spilt some of the water from the bottle next to the bed over his hands in an attempt to get rid of the blood, wiping his fingers on the shirt that was already ruined anyway.

   He was glad when Cas entered the room not that much later.

   “Dean.”

   “Hey, Cas,” Dean said quietly to his hands. He didn’t look up as Cas closed the door, or as he walked up to the bed and sat down next to Dean, leaning against the headboard. There was blood under his fingernails that he wouldn’t be able to wash off as easily. It looked so human. “You sure he was an alien?”

   “I am sure,” Cas said. “He was a horrible person, Dean.”

   “You say that like I don’t know that.”

   “I don’t know what he did to you in the past. You don’t have to tell me,” he added quickly. “But he was stained beyond help.”

   “I still killed someone,” Dean said, and he hated how weak he sounded. “I didn’t think—Everything he’s done… I thought I could do it. But I killed someone. In cold blood, Cas.”

   “I know.”

   “That’s not—I wasn’t trying to—” Dean shook his head. “What you did, that was defence. We wouldn’t have survived there. Hell, I nearly didn’t. What I did… that was murder.”

   “Only recently have I come to terms with the idea that what I did does not make me a bad person,” Cas admitted. “Gabriel forced me to see this when I healed you. I acted with the intention to save the person I love, last time. That makes a difference, I believe.”

   “You’re a good person, Cas,” Dean said. “I don’t agree with Gabriel a lot, but I do about that.”

   “Thank you,” Cas replied, like it really meant something to him that Dean said that. “I saw afterwards, as I attempted to heal you from your most lethal wounds, that I could still do good even after doing something so terrible. You are not a bad person, Dean.”

   “Yeah, well, I didn’t act out of defence, did I?”

   “You acted out of a desire to keep your family safe. To keep the world safe. Your acts were bad, but your intentions were not.”

   But Dean’s intentions had been to hurt. All he’d wanted was to inflict pain on someone who’d broken him in so many ways. It wasn’t defence, it wasn’t a desire to keep people from future harm. It was a desire for revenge, more than anything.

   He didn’t wipe away the tears he could feel streaming down his face. He didn’t reach for Cas’s soothing touch. He didn’t deserve anything like that. He didn’t deserve to feel comfort, and he truly wished he couldn’t feel anything else.

   “Dean.”

   He felt numb and yet in so much pain at the same time.

   “Dean. I need you to come back to me. _Dean_.”

   He didn’t know why he did what he did next. Perhaps he was in such a bad place he didn’t care anymore. All he knew was one moment he heard Cas calling his name, and the next he was straddling the man’s thighs, pressing their lips together like his life depended on it. In that moment, it felt like it did. “Cas,” he choked out. “I need you.”

   But Cas was pushing him away, shaking his head, and Dean felt the pressing palms like a punch in the chest. “You aren’t feeling right.”

   “So make me feel good,” Dean pleaded, hating himself for it. “Make me feel _something_ , Cas, _please_.”

   “This isn’t a good time.”

   Dean laughed bitterly. “There’s never gonna be a right time with you, is there? Did you finally see it? That I’m not—” He shook his head. “Not worthy? Was your attraction ever there in the first place? What is it, Cas? What is it that makes me so undesirable to you? Is it the blood on my hands?” He smirked. “The demon behind this face?”

   Cas took his wrists, lowering them to the bed. “You’re not you. You are upset. I understand that. But I need you to come back. I need you to leave that mask behind and come back to me.”

   “So bring me back,” Dean grit out, incapable of not grinding his hips against Cas’s. It didn’t have the desired effect, though. Sure, Cas flipped them over, still holding on to Dean’s wrists and pinning him against the bed underneath him. And sure, despite everything that had happened today, Dean could feel his body respond. But the verbal response he got was, “I said, _no_ , Dean.”

   He could feel the grin break, slide off his face like the mask Cas had called it. It was like that one word sucked all the strength out of his body and left him feeling like a rag doll both physically and emotionally. The tears were threatening to come back, too, and Dean couldn’t find it in him to stop them.

   Cas wiped them away for him.

   “Screw you, Cas.”

   “How are you feeling?”

   “Tired.” He was so tired. All he’d wanted was to feel something good, to wipe out the memory of Alastair and everything he’d ever done to Dean. He wanted to exchange those memories for new ones, for better ones, but Cas had seen him like he was—a monster, not that much different from the creatures they’d encountered on Atala after all—and he refused. It wasn’t a final day on Earth thing. They were still alive. And it didn’t matter.

   “I need you to understand that I did not refuse you because I do not love you,” Cas said softly, bending down to place a kiss on Dean’s mouth. “I do love you, Dean. So much. But I will not take advantage of you this way.”

   “You’re not,” Dean muttered. “If anyone was trying to take advantage, it was me. I’m sorry.”

   “It’s alright. I’m not angry.”

   “Yeah, well. I am.”

   Cas’s fingers were tracing his chest and the tummy Dean had acquired while in Cas’s home, gorging himself on decent food for the first time in his life. He was sure it’d be gone again soon. “This body has been through much,” the alien said. “I can see it.”

   “Thanks,” Dean said sarcastically.

   “I meant it as a compliment,” Cas said. “You are so beautiful, Dean.”

   “Whatever.”

   “Don’t brush me off.” The fingers were caressing his side now, and the angle put Cas’s hips around Dean in such a way that he couldn’t help bucking up a little.

   “If you don’t—you’re gonna have to get off me, man.”

   “Alright,” Cas said, moving so that his hips no longer slotted against Dean’s. Dean felt the loss instantly. After what just happened, though, he knew he had to warn Cas something might happen that he didn’t want to.

   But Cas didn’t move away entirely. His right hand was working Dean’s zipper, and goddamn did it feel freeing when his pants popped open. “What are you—”

   He didn’t have to finish that sentence to know exactly what Cas was doing. There was a hand palming Dean’s crotch through the fabric of his boxers, and it had been _so long_ since he’d felt anything this tentative there he couldn’t possibly stop the gasp he let out at the feeling. “I thought you didn’t—”

   “I wasn’t rejecting you.” Cas’s hand left Dean’s crotch to take his pants off completely. “I wanted you to be here for it. Are you here for it, Dean?”

   “Hell yeah,” Dean said breathlessly.

   “This is new to me,” Cas admitted. “If I do anything that does not feel pleasurable to you, I need you to tell me.”

   “You talk too much,” Dean said, even though he could feel his heart surge at the words. Cas had never done this with anyone before. He was doing this for Dean, and he would make sure Dean would only feel good. “Seriously, though, are you alright with this?”

   Cas just smiled. “This how I know you are you,” he said. “Yes, I am quite sure.” And then he was using those hands again, one on Dean’s hip where his thumb rubbed circles onto Dean’s skin, one back to where it was before.

   “Shit,” Dean said. “I love you.”

*

   “Did you—”

   “This was not about me.”

   “Fuck that, man, you deserve to feel good, too. You’re not even _hard_.”

   “You forget I am not human.”

   “So, what, you don’t get boners?”

   “It is possible,” Cas said. “But they are easy to suppress.”

   It was silent for a short while until Dean said, “Oh. _Oh_.” And brought his hand to Cas’s wings. “Is it okay if I do this?”

   Cas inhaled sharply, even though Dean hadn’t properly touched him yet. “That is okay, yes.”

   They were _wet_. And sticky. The more Dean moved his hands up through the wings, toward Cas’s back, the more he felt it, like grease coating his fingers, except with a nicer smell. Curiosity perked, he had to refrain himself from diving right in rather than working up to the knots at the base of the wings where it seemed to come from. He was doing this for Cas, so he was gonna have to take it a bit more slowly than that.

   The little sounds Cas was making didn’t help with that, though.

   “What is it?” Dean finally asked, unable to keep himself in check.

   “My glands… produce natural oil,” Cas said, voice strained. “It is used to—to keep my wings groomed, but they… produce more when—when I’m aroused.”

   “It’s like natural lube.” The thought had reached Dean’s mouth before his brain could filter it, and he almost wanted to hide in embarrassment. Almost, because he didn’t want to remove his fingers from Cas’s wings, softly prodding at their base while combing through the wings at the same time. “Shit, sorry. I didn’t mean—I’m not ready for that.”

   “Can you please shut up,” Cas ground out.

   “Yeah. Okay.”

*

   “How are you feeling?”

   “Depends,” Dean said. “If you’re asking if I regret anything, the answer is no, I don’t.”

   “I was asking in general.”

   “In that case, pretty shit. But also like it might get better.”

   “It will,” Cas said. It sounded like a promise.

   “How about you? I mean, all that happened on your planet—and Earth isn’t all that great.”

    “It is difficult, yes. The knowledge that I might never return, despite it not truly feeling like I belong there… It still hurts. But you are right. It might get better.”

   “Planet’s dying,” Dean pointed out. He was already feeling tired again. It was a feeling he couldn’t run from no matter how much he rested.

   “Not if we do our best.” He sounded truly convinced about that. “And Earth has you.”

   “Don’t be gross, Cas.”

   “I just touched your penis and this is what you think is gross.”

   “Please don’t say penis again.”

   Cas just snickered and kissed Dean.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were making their way to an area that Charlie referred to as Oz, “a mythical place” run by a “dream called Dorothy”.

**Twenty-three.**

   Dean always imagined a rebellion to be a massive thing. For everyone to simultaneously stand up and say, fuck this, there’s got to be a better way than this. He’d envision it sometimes, everyone he knew facing the Centre, breaking it down, using all their materials to build ships that would move around Earth instead of in space, to make tools to somehow help them regrow all kinds of food. But he had no idea how to do any of that—from the growing to the building to organising a rebellion.

   Never, not once, had he imagined it to be like this. Secretive, trusting voices from intercoms that belonged to people he’d never seen or didn’t remember if he had. Jody, who’d gone into hiding after her husband and child had been killed. Her unlikely best friend, Donna. Alex and Claire, who had been nomads before ending up here, of all places. Dean had never met any nomad before. He’d heard about them, sure—clans of people who moved around in hopes of finding something, _anything_ , to give them faith in life again. Hell, he’d wanted to leave himself plenty of times, but Sammy had been just a kid and he couldn’t have made his brother leave the relative safety that this place provided.

   Didn’t matter anyway, if those girls decided this was the place for them to stay.

   Garth was a guy from Charlie’s old network who was still doing his regular job at EGC, a wolf in sheep’s clothes keeping them updated. Whatever he did wasn’t a job that held high accountability, which was just about perfect because it wasn’t hard for him to stay under the radar even in that place.

   There were more people—Rufus Turner, an old friend of Bobby’s that Dean had met once before when he was a kid; Linda Tran and her son Kevin, who not unlike Alex and Claire had wandered here from faraway places; Benny Lafitte, a guy Dean used to go to school with but hadn’t seen since. It had been a surprise to learn just how many people were in on this—people that Dean knew and people he’d never even heard of.

   Nomads weren’t just stories, and they knew how to survive out there.

   Not everyone who had grown up here conformed to the rules, both implicit and explicit, forced upon them by what they knew now might be all aliens.

   It had been a lot to take in and a lot of people to meet, even if it were through the ether, in a short time; but then, Dean’s life hadn’t been particularly calm and relaxing for as long as he could remember, and the past few months, if nothing else, had at least prepared him a little bit. Even if he hadn’t been supposed to be dead, he’d never be able to go back to life as it was before.

   “The resistance doesn’t begin or end with you,” Charlie had told him. “It’s been building itself up for a while now. We’re glad you made it back to Earth alive. Your story’s given us a bit of a boost. But you’re not the centre of this operation, and you’re not the face of this rebellion. You have to follow our lead.”

   So maybe that one hurt a bit. It wasn’t like it went in stories, when someone goes through a shitty time that only sounds good when told to complete outsiders much later on, and they become the face of the opposition, the leader of the rebellion, the name that will change history and pop up in legends decades afterwards. “Only in stories is there a single hero,” Sam said, because he was a bitch who knew Dean too well.

   They were making their way to an area that Charlie referred to as Oz, “a mythical place” run by a “dream called Dorothy”. This meant that a) it had a computer, and b) she had a massive crush on Dorothy. Dean had gone there with Charlie before to work on said computer, and despite Charlie’s protests to the contrary, it was glaringly obvious. Not in the least because Charlie wasn’t a mechanic and until the computer did what it was supposed to do, not desperately needed there each time.

   This time was different, though.

   This was it.

*

   “Countdown from ten.”

   What was about to happen was this:

   “Nine.”

   Charlie was going to push a button.

   “Eight.”

   That button would set in motion the biggest hack she’d ever attempted.

   “Seven.”

   This hack would delve into the furthest corners of the system in the tech centre, to extract every little bit of information they could. Whatever was hidden there, they would find it, copy it, and destroy the original for good measure.

   “Six.”

   And whoever hid it there would find them.

   “Five.”

   And they would destroy them.

   “Four.”

   It was probably rational to assume that.

   “Three.”

   It was a damn stupid and reckless idea.

   “Two.”

   They were going to do it anyway.

   “One.”

 

   Things went agonisingly slow, and then really, really fast. Like watching the dark clouds of a storm approach and still being taken by surprise when all hell breaks loose over your head.

   Dean and Dorothy watched Charlie’s face light up in elation when her hack worked, then in fear when the realisation hit of what that would mean. Or maybe she could see the exact moment when they were being found out. Dean didn’t know shit about computers.

   “Well,” Dorothy said. “Now they know.”

   _Now they know we’re aware of their bullshit._

   It was those four words that had Dean see his life flash before his eyes—the last time he saw their Dad, Bobby giving up part of his credits to feed them, running, stealing, Alastair, Xa’ar. All because Dad had been onto something—some stupid alien family feud.

   It was a fucking joke. A story. Something that should’ve happened to someone else, in a different time, a different universe. Not something real.

   He wanted, desperately, to go back to where they came from, almost as if to check if Cas was real and that Sam and Jess were really there. He wanted to make sure they stayed safe. Against creatures as strong as Cas, what chance did his brother and Jess stand? What chance did any of them stand?

   “Dean. _Focus_ ,” Dorothy snapped.

   “I can’t track their movements. I think it’s safe to assume they’re on their way.”

   “Forget that. What can you tell us?”

   “It’s cryptic. I need Dean with this.”

   He was never going to get used to being the one who was asked to decode stuff. It should’ve been Sam here, weren’t it for the fact that Dean had the most unique experience out of all of them. Everyone else was on lookout duty.

   Dean felt like he could hear footsteps above them, people thundering around looking for them. He wasn’t—it was just his heartbeat going crazy.

   Nothing he’d experienced so far had felt as real as this. It wasn’t being here, or staring at lines on a screen that may or may not mean something for them. It was the acute awareness that everyone he loved was in direct danger, right here, right now.

   _They’re coming for us._

“Well?” Dorothy said.

   “Give me a minute,” Dean snapped.

   “We don’t have many more minutes.”

   “Shut it, princess.”

   She raised her eyebrows at him, lips pressed together and arms crossed, but didn’t say another word. Maybe Charlie had sent her one of those _looks_ that she did, or maybe she’d figured out Dean was under enough time pressure as it was—they all were. 

   “This is all destroyed?”

   “On their servers, yeah,” Charlie said. “Well, it’s in progress.”

   “Okay.”

   “Does it matter? Directly, I mean.”

   “Don’t think so. I mean, it’s buried this deep, it wouldn’t really be available to just anyone, but someone’s gotta know. Or a lot of people know a little. I couldn’t say.”

   “It’s only on their server because of long-distance communication,” Charlie said. “And it’s drowned out by regular data—stuff about space travel and food regulations, all kinds of things you’d expect if someone were running a small community.”

   “Most we’ll get out of that is whether they’ve been fair about food rations,” Dorothy added. “Or, at its worst, whether they’ve always known about us, underground here.”

   “Shit,” Dean said, because he hadn’t thought about that yet.

   “Anything new you can get from this bumble?” Charlie pressed. “What about this—”

   That was the exact point from which things sped up, like time had turned into a hurricane.

   It gave them knowledge of several things within a very short time.

   First, the person they were looking for was hiding in plain sight.

   Second, the person they were looking for knew they were looking for them.

   Third, the people they’d been hiding from definitely knew where they were hiding.

   Fourth: they were coming.

   A distant crash and Charlie was up out of her chair. “Dean. Go.”

   “I—yeah.”

   “None of us stand alone. We’ve got our fight right here. You know where yours is now.”

   _They were coming._

   Five:

   Dean was going to die.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Winchesters are quite predictable,” the man said. “Always ready to play martyr.”

**Twenty-four.**

   Every time his feet hit the ground he could feel it reverberate in his head, like his brain was a damn drum that kept being hit. It made it impossible to think, but that might be a good thing. Dean had his mind set on one thing only, and he didn’t need to think to get it done.

   It was probably better if he didn’t.

   Every beat of that damn drum was the name of someone he cared about. _Thump._ Dorothy. _Thump._ Bobby. _Thump._ Charlie. _Thump._ Jess. _Thump._ Sam. _Thump. Cas._

Their names were a mantra, even if he couldn’t and didn’t want to think about it too deeply. They just spurred him on. All those people who had been quietly resisting for so long. All those people who hadn’t, but didn’t deserve this shitty world. The quicker Dean was, the more hope they had.

   Arrogant as it might be, he needed it to be him.

   It had been easy—too easy—to get outside, above ground, and equally easy to get to this part of the tech centre. It was either of two things: everyone had their focus on something else, or the dick had planned this.

   Dean knew which option to expect.

   “Lu’cfer. Or do you prefer Luke, _Nick_?”

   “Dean. I was wondering how long it would take you to get here.”

   He didn’t look all that menacing. He looked like any regular guy. Blond, regular sized, feet up against the table of the break room where Dean had gotten his shitty prisoner meals while everyone else got to, maybe not enjoy their food, but at least eat lunches that were properly digestible. “Luke sounds a little more integrated, does it not? Although a little obvious, should people dig too deep, so I picked something completely different when actually dealing with you monkeys in person.”

   He laughed, but there was no humour in it. “Not that I expected them to—dig very deep, that is. Although I must admit I am impressed with how far you humans got, finding out it was me.” He didn’t seem too bothered.

   “Good to know you were still expecting me.”

   He felt paradoxically calm. He was facing the guy who’d made his life a living hell; who’d made John Winchester’s ship disappear off the radar, who’d let Dean’s ship crash, who’d been controlling their community from the inside to make sure the people would be few and weak enough to take over the planet without too much hassle. To drive them to extinction, or maybe even gratefulness toward aliens that salvaged their planet. Dean had been surprised that suggestion hadn’t been taken up when Charlie mentioned it.

   “Doesn’t seem like their style,” Dorothy had observed. “They want paradise for themselves. That doesn’t factor in weak humans to get to enjoy the beauty of it with them.”

   Dean had thought that was bullshit, but looking at _Nick_ ’s smug face now, he thought she was probably right.

   “Winchesters are quite predictable,” the man said. “Always ready to play martyr.”

   “You killed my dad.”

   “Your father killed himself,” Lu’cfer said, “with that obsession with finding out the truth. I just helped him along a little.”

   Dean’s hands balled themselves into fists without his brain giving them the order to. This wasn’t the kind of asshole you just punched in the face. He might be jumped on by a whole bunch of aliens at once, and the asshole probably wouldn’t even feel it.

   Damn, would it be satisfying, though.

   “I just don’t get it,” he said. “You could wipe us all out. Easily.”

   “You’re doing the job yourselves just fine.” Nick—Lu’cfer—smiled. “All we had to do was repress all sparks of hope. Your insignificant little species is based entirely on that, even after you nearly ruined yourself and there was hardly anything to hope for. All I did was keep it that way.” When Dean didn’t reply, his smile broadened. “You thought you were bringing hope, did you not? Helping your people venture into space. Being the only one to return with such a positive story. Yet I could crush you with barely any effort. What makes you think you can save the world, Dean?”

   “I don’t know,” said Dean. “All I know is I gotta try.”

    “You know that old gun you’re hiding won’t work, Dean. Don’t look at me like that. I don’t think you truly believed I wouldn’t know you brought your daddy’s old gun.” Lu’cfer waved his hand in a dismissive gesture that Dean did his best not to respond to even through the slightest change in expression.

   Of course the gun wouldn’t work. Cas hadn’t so much as bled when Dean rammed his chest with a screwdriver. He wasn’t a complete idiot. Let Lu’cfer think that, though.

   “Why did you come? You could have stayed underground, finished your short little life there. I might even have let you.”

   “Yeah, forgive me if I don’t believe the shit you spew.”

   “Oh, I don’t lie.”

   “No, you just deceive. It’s your kind that crawled its way up from living underground, ain’t it? So maybe it’s you that needs to be put back.”

   “Beautiful. Who wrote that for you?” Lu’cfer’s eyes, though, had started glowing, and Dean knew that the conversation was soon to be over.

   Good. Bring it on.

   Dean could handle pain relatively well. He could also handle the knowledge that this day might very well be his last. His life had never amounted to much; if this was it, then at least he could go out trying to save the world. That had to count for something.

   What he hadn’t expected was the ease with which Lu’cfer had him crumble to the ground in pain. A flick of his hand was all it took for Dean’s veins to feel like they were filled with fire, and for a second he thought the red he saw was that demonic bitch back on Atala and he never left that place.

   Except he _knew_ he wasn’t. Cas wasn’t here to save him this time. Cas was somewhere out there fighting, trying to keep everyone safe. Dean was here alone. This entire operation now depended on him.

   He wouldn’t be able to say, later on, how he’d managed to move in a way that his brain wanted him to through the pain. He’d remember coughing and seeing blood splatter on the ground as he did so. He’d remember Lu’cfer droning on and on about something, though he couldn’t tell what the man was saying. He’d know that even after all the times he’d nearly died, even after every time he thought he’d been ready for it, he wasn’t. He didn’t want to die.

   But he couldn’t remember for the life of him how he’d managed to fire that gun.

   The pain didn’t let up. It may even have gotten worse. His vision was getting hazy, but he could still see the expression of surprise and mirth on Lu’cfer’s face. _Is this it, Dean? Is this your master plan? You pathetic little human. I’m enjoying watching you die._

   _It didn’t work._

   He’d only had one shot, only one bullet, and it hadn’t worked. Maybe it hadn’t hit the alien where it should have, in its heart or in its brain or whatever—Dean wasn’t aware enough of his surroundings to see where he was aiming, and besides, the fucker didn’t bleed. He might have missed altogether and he’d never know. And he didn’t have another bullet to try again.

   Suddenly Luke seemed to tower over him, looking much taller now than he really was (or used to be?). Much more terrifying. And Dean—he should be fighting back. Had Luke been human, Dean was sure he could’ve taken him; and not being sure about such things had never stopped him from getting into fights before.

   But Luke’s hand was curling around Dean’s throat, and it was like all his muscles had suddenly stopped working. He was going to die being crushed like a rag doll, and he was going to let it happen because he couldn’t save the damn world in the end.

   The tang of blood in his mouth was the taste of the apology he silently sent to everyone, but most of all to Cas. For failing. For ruining his life. For wasting his Grace with that bullet.

   And then Lu’cfer’s expression started to crumble, and something started to flicker behind his skin. His grip loosened and Dean tried to catch his breath and hold it in at the same time.

   Everything around them had stopped. Either the other aliens had figured out something was going on with their boss and stopped fighting, or Dean was too focused on the here and now, or both—but for a few moments, time really did stand still.

   And then Lu’cfer started to laugh. “Nice trick of yours, whatever you did with that gun. But I did warn you it wouldn’t work, didn’t I?”

   (The fighting in the distance hadn’t stopped, or had picked up again.)

   “Yeah, you did.”

   “I’ve never liked humans. You think you own the universe, but all you really are is pathetic little mud monkeys—”

   “—Who still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. Yeah, we are.”

   “You’re an insolent little—”

   But whatever the flick of his hand was supposed to do to Dean, nothing happened.

   Lu’cfer’s face fell.

   “But we’ve learned a few things recently,” Dean said with a smirk that hopefully didn’t betray his relief that it _had_ worked, thank fuck, it had _worked_ and now all he had to do was ram that alien-killing blade Cas got him all the way back on Atala

right

into

its

target.

   _“He’s strong, and difficult to fight. If he and M’chal fought again, it would lead to a big bang. They would use all their power on each other, and it would ruin everything around them and leave nothing in their wake.”_

_“So we don’t fight.”_

_“We don’t give him the chance to fight. He must be defeated with Grace, but he must not be expecting it. You must use a weak, human invention. If he believes we are desperate enough to use that, we stand a chance.”_

_“Alright. I’m assuming you got an idea.”_

_“I believe a Grace-infused bullet should do the trick. It will not kill him, but it will incapacitate him long enough for you to be able to. You still have that blade I gave you, I assume.”_

_“Hell yeah, I got this.”_


	26. Chapter 26

**Twenty-five.**

“He’s awake! Oh god. Oh, thank fuck.”

   “I’ll get Castiel.”

   “Wake Sam, too. He could use the good news.”

   Dean groaned and closed his eyes again. He had no clue where he was, but Charlie was right there with him, looking tired but unhurt. And Sam and Cas were alive, too, then. That was all good to know.

   He listened to the sounds of people moving around until he heard Cas rasp out his name. Only then did he open his eyes again. “Hiya, Cas.”

   “It’s—good to see you again.”

   “You too. How’s—”

   He was gonna ask how it had gone, how everyone was, but that was when Sam appeared in the door opening. His eyes were red and small and he looked exhausted.

   “Sammy,” Dean said.

   Charlie took that as her cue to leave the room despite Dean not even having acknowledged her yet. He felt a bit bad about that, but didn’t try to stop her. Not before he’d talked to Sam.

   “Jess is dead,” Sam said.

   “Shit,” said Dean. “Shit, Sam, I’m sorry.”

   “It’s not your fault. It’s just—I just got her back.” He looked away. “No one has heard from Bobby, either.”

   That was where they were, Dean realised. Bobby’s house. “The old bastard might still turn up. If anyone can—”

   “Yeah,” Sam said, but he sounded equally convinced as Dean felt.

   Dean finally made the effort of hoisting himself up so he was sitting with his back against the pillows. “Alright. Sit down, I don’t like you looming over me like the sasquatch you are. You too, Cas. What happened?”

*

   With Luke out of the picture, many lower-rank Atalans had chosen to leave out of their own volition. They’d been exposed, they were hunted, and although they could fight the humans and probably win, they weren’t up for an intergalactic war either. Some, though not many, had died. Some disappeared, perhaps hoping Earth would still turn into a kind of paradise, or perhaps biding their time. Dean would willingly hunt them down if he had to.

   But they were still dealing with a dying planet, first.

   They still had that seed-thing Dean had gone through great pains to obtain (literally), but it wasn’t remarkable in how fast it grew compared to any regular seed. That was to say, they could plant it now, but chances were pretty high it might not see the light of day in time to save anyone.

   “I could give it a ‘boost’,” Cas said, air quotes and all.

   It took a few seconds for anyone to answer, and no one was surprised when it was Dean who did. “What’s the catch?”

   “I will… not be able to replenish my Grace. Not after all that has happened recently. It was nearly exhausted after… our return, and not being on my home planet makes it more difficult. If I do this, it will be the last time.”

   “What’s that mean?”

   “It means I will be, essentially, as powerless as any human.”

   “Dammit, Cas.”

   “I want to be able to use it for something that gives life, rather than take it.” Cas’s jaw was set. “I have used it for too many deplorable things, Dean. I have killed and hurt too many with it. I would likely be the first of my kind to lose their Grace entirely, but I am ready to do so. It has only brought pain.”

   “You saved me.”

   “And what good will that be if your planet, and all of us—including you—die?” he snapped. “I could not save Jessica—”

   “Not your fault, Cas,” Sam muttered.

   “But I can try to save you. All of you, Dean.”

   Charlie and Dorothy could explore the world together. Alex and Claire could do whatever young people did when they weren’t trying desperately to survive. Sam… Sam would be able to find the time to properly grieve for his fiancée, Dean supposed, and though that was hardly a hopeful future, he at least deserved that much.

   All the others that had been underground, who deserved to see Earth bloom. The innocent people everywhere around. They all seemed to feel a bit aimless, pointless, without the Centre as their point of reference, but they deserved more than this.

   He hardly dared think it, but maybe Dean could build up a new home with Cas. He could look for Bobby, find out whether the man was still alive or get closure if he wasn’t.

   They could, at the very least, start rebuilding.

   He heard himself ask, stupidly, “What’s gonna happen to your wings?”

   “I don’t know,” said Cas, and he didn’t sound like he cared all that much.

   “And you’re sure. About this.”

   “Yes.” He sighed. “Dean, you must understand. Even if I could go home, I do not care to do so. I care about you, and Sam and Charlie. I would like to get to know more humans. Unless—Unless you do not want me to.”

   “Jesus, Cas, I wouldn’t send you back.”

   “There are other places I could go.”

   “No, you don’t—you don’t _get_ it.” But maybe Cas was right and neither did Dean. “Dammit, Cas. I love you.”

   “I appreciate that.”

   “Not the appropriate thing to say, Cas.”

   He smiled. “I apologise. I love you too, Dean. And I will happily stay with you.” He gestured at the Io-iad. “But this—my Grace… I am not doing this for you. I am doing this for me.”

   He didn’t want to see Cas give up this much, didn’t want to see his wings disappear or his eyes to stop glowing like an angel falling to Earth. But at the same time, he wanted Cas to stay, to spend the rest of his life with him—and have that rest of his life be another while.

   And apparently Cas wanted the same things.

   “Alright.”


	27. Chapter 27

* * *

**Epilogue**

* * *

 

**WHAT WAS GAINED IN THE AFTERMATH**

**(an incomplete but significant list)**

   Natural resources. Plants and trees. Not native to Earth, perhaps, but kept up by Castiel’s Grace running through them. With those, cleaner air. In time, a healthier and better place to live.

   The return of some species. Not all could be saved, but the stronger greenery gave a comeback to some that had been close to extinction, those that had not been able to survive out in the dry wilderness. Life on Earth could never be restored entirely as it had been, but neither did it prove to be entirely lost.

   Villages, the way they should be. Townships based on companionship and communal effort. First at the centre of Castiel’s Grace, the eternal tree in the middle like the old houses of worship—but then, as the tree grew and the ground blossomed and more seeds were formed to plant, as passing nomads would take them and plant them on their way, the people got more places to go. Perhaps it was remnants of the Grace that made these seeds grow as fast and as well as they did, in which case he would have been proud to know that he had truly used it for something greater than he could ever have foreseen.

   But he would never know, because an age-old alien gained human mortality, and humanity gained an angel.

   And they gained friendships stronger than anyone expected to have, through hurricanes of emotions. In general, a strength of mind that no one had believed possible from humanity for a long time.

   Community. A sense of security.

   Love, of every imaginable kind.

   Everyone agreed something like this was never to happen again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it - please let me know! 
> 
> Also, come find me on [Tumblr](http://asexualfeministagenda.tumblr.com).


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